`old Fitzblazes's Eight o'clock Gun,' sir. They did so, sir, yezsir!"

"Indeed, waiter?" said I, feeling quite proud of his thus speaking to me
as if I were a grown-up person. "But who was this gentleman, old Fitz--
what did you call him?"

"Old Sir Titus Fitzblazes, sir," glibly replied the coffee-room
factotum, flicking off a fly as he spoke from the table-cloth whereon he
had just arranged all the paraphernalia of our breakfast. "Lord-sakes,
sir, yer doesn't mean for to say, sir, as a well-growed young gen'leman
like yerself, sir, as is a naval gent, sir, as I can see with arf an
eye, haven't heard tell o' he? Well, sir, he were port admiral here,
sir, a matter of eight or ten year ago, sir, yezsir; and, wot's more,
sir, he were the tautest old sea porkypine ye'd fetch across `in a blue
moon,' as sailor folk say!

"Yezsir, I've heerd when he were commodore on the West Coast, he used
for to turn up the hands every mornin' regular and give 'em four dozen
apiece for breakfast, sir!"

"Good gracious me, waiter!" I exclaimed, aghast at this statement.
"Four dozen lashes?"

"Yezsir. Lor'! four dozen lashings was nothink to old Sir Titus, for he
were pertickeler partial to noggin', he were, and took it out of the men
like steam, he did!

"The ossifers, in course, he couldn't sarve out in the same way, not
being allowed for to do so by the laws of the service, sir; but he'd
court-martial 'em, sir, as many on 'em as would give him arf a chance,
and the court-martial gun used for to fire in his time here as reg'lar
as clock-work every mornin' at eight, winter and summer alike, jest the
same as when the flag's h'isted at sunrise, yezsir!"

"What an old martinet he must have been!" I said in response to this.
"Perhaps, though, the poor old admiral suffered from bad health, and
that made him cross and easily put out?"

"Bad health, sir? Not a bit of it!" exclaimed my friend, the waiter,
repudiating such an excuse with scorn. "It were bad temper as were
_his_ complaint.

"Lord-sakes, though, sir, he were bad all over, was Sir Titus; ay, that
he were, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot. As bad as
they makes 'em!

"W'y, he 'ad the temper, sir, of old Nick hisself, ay, that he had!

"I don't mean the Czar of Roosia, sir. Don't you run away with that
there notion! No, sir, I means the rale old gent as ye've heerd tell
on, wot hangs out down below when he's at home and allers dresses in
black t