"Ay, you may well laugh, youngster," said he, looking very fierce with
his knitted eyebrows, though speaking to me good-naturedly enough. "The
whole business would make a cat laugh were it not so humiliating, by
George! But, avast there! let us drop it; for we've had enough of it by
now and to spare. Things, though, were very different, Vernon, when you
and I sailed together. I tell you what it is, my lad, the service is
going to the devil, that's what it is!"

"By Jove! you're right, sir, I quite agree with you there," chorused Dad
with much effusion, speaking evidently from the bottom of his heart.
"Everything is changed, Admiral, to what we were accustomed to in the
good old times when I had the luck to serve under you; and, I'm afraid,
sir, we'll never see such times again. There's no chance for a poor
fellow like me nowadays at the Admiralty as I know to my cost! No one
has an opening given him unless he's acquainted with some bigwig with a
handle to his name, or knows the Secretary's niece, or the chief
messenger's aunt. Otherwise, he may as well whistle for the moon as ask
for a ship!"

"That's true enough, Vernon, by George!" said the Admiral, with equal
heat. "Interest with the Board is everything in these times, and
personal merit nothing! You may be the smartest sailor that ever trod a
quarter-deck and they will look askance at you at Whitehall; but, only
get some Lord Tom Noddy to back up your claims on an ungrateful country
or show those Admiralty chaps that you know a Member of Parliament or
two, and can control a division in the House of Commons, then, by
George! it is wonderful, Vernon, how suddenly the great Mister Secretary
of the Board will recognise your previously unknown abilities and other
good qualities to which he has hitherto been blind, and how anxious the
First Lord will be to promote you--eh, Vernon, you rascal? Ho! ho! ho!"

Dad joined in the hearty roar of laughter, with which the Admiral ended
his sarcastic comments, the recital of which had apparently eased his
mind and banished the last lingering recollections of the ill-treatment
he had received at the hands of the government; for the old sailor now
dismissed the subject, going on to talk about old shipmates and other
matters as they sauntered onwards along Pall Mall, the Admiral hobbling
on one side of Dad and I on the other, holding his hand, listening
eagerly all the while to their animated conversation and taking in eve