A captain in the Royal Navy,
now on half-pay, sir."

The fat clergyman laughed at my laconic reply.

"Vernon, ha!" he repeated after me. "I wonder if he is the Frank Vernon
I once knew?"

"Can't say, sir," said I, cautiously. "My mother, though, always calls
him `Frank.'"

My new friend laughed again.

"Ah, I'm sure he is the same, if only from your manner, which is just
like what I remember in the Frank Vernon who was in the _Pelican_ with
me," said he, looking at me all over with his twinkling round eyes.
"Was your father ever up the Mediterranean with old Charley Napier, my
boy?"

"Oh yes, sir," I replied, glib enough now. "It was Admiral Napier who
gave me my nomination the other day, sir."

"Really, you don't say so?"

"I do, though, sir," I said sturdily, thinking he doubted my assertion.
"Dad and I met him in Pall Mall, and I got my nomination from the
Admiralty, sir, the very next morning as he promised!"

"All right, my boy, all right," he observed in an absent way, turning to
whisper to the two other gentlemen something, I think, about "old
Charley," and "must be passed for my old shipmate's sake."--"I quite
believe what you say: I do not doubt your word for an instant; for Frank
Vernon's son, I am sure, could not but always speak the truth. Did your
father come down with you for your examination?"

"Yes, sir," I answered. "He and my mother came with me; and we're all
staying at the old `Keppel's Head Hotel,' on Hardway, sir."

"Humph! I think I know the place you mention, youngster," said he, with
a significant twinkle in his eye which made the other two chaplains
grin, I could see, at some joke they had between them. "I'll try and
call on your father, if I can find time before he leaves Portsmouth.
Tell him when you get back, that old Tangent asked after him, please."

"I'll make a point of doing so, sir," I replied, with a bow, repeating
the name after him to make certain. "I will tell him, sir, about Old
Tangent."

"Old Tangent, indeed!" cried the old fellow, shaking his fat sides,
while the other two examiners roared outright. "You've a pretty good
stock of impudence of your own, I'm sure! Be off with you, you young
rascal, or I'll pluck you as certain as I'm that Old Tangent with whom
you dare to be so familiar!"

His jovial face, however, belied the threat, so it did not occasion me
any alarm; and, bowing again politely to the three clerical gentlemen
collectively, I bent my