k at what was going on around him.

The packet was a brig of about two hundred tons, and she carried about
twenty passengers, of whom fully half Ralph judged by their appearance
to be military men. Before they had reached the mouth of the river he
found that one among them Captain O'Connor, belonged to his own
regiment, as did another young fellow about his own age named
Stapleton, who had been gazetted on the same day as himself. Captain
O'Connor, who was a cheery Irishman, full of life and spirits, at once
took Ralph in hand, and was not long in drawing from him the story of
his adventures with the privateers.

"You will do, my lad. I can see you have got the roughness rubbed off
you already, and will get on capitally with the regiment. I can't say
as much for that young fellow Stapleton. He seems to be completely
puffed up with the sense of his own importance, and to be an unlicked
sort of cub altogether. However, I have known more unlikely subjects
than he is turn out decent fellows after a course of instruction from
the boys; but he will have rather a rough time of it at first I
expect. You will be doing him a kindness if you take an opportunity to
tell him that a newly-joined ensign is not regarded in the same light
as a commander-in-chief. It is like a new boy going to school, you
know. If fellows find out he is a decent sort of boy, they soon let
him alone; but if he is an ass, especially a conceited ass, he has
rather a rough time of it. As you are in the same cabin with him, and
have had the advantage of having knocked about the world a bit, you
might gently hint this to him."

"I have been chatting with him a bit," Ralph said. "He has never been
to school, but has been brought up at home, and I think from what he
said he is the heir to an estate. He seemed rather to look down upon
schools."

"So much the worse for him," Captain O'Connor said. "There is nothing
like a school for bringing a fellow to his level, unless it is a
regiment; and the earlier in life the process takes place the less
painful it is."

"I don't think he will turn out a bad sort of fellow," Ralph said. "He
is, as you say, rather an ass at present. I will do what I can to give
him a hint; but as I should say he is at least a year older than I am,
I do not suppose it will be of much use."

The voyage was a pleasant one, and Ralph was quite sorry when they
entered the Cove of Cork and dropped anchor. The next morning the ship
sailed u