tnoll to keep his chin up, and we passed in with a fine show of
haughty indifference.

At eight o'clock next morning Hartnoll and I were eating our breakfast
when the waiter brought a visitor to our box--a tallish midshipman about
three years our senior, with a face of the colour of brickdust and a frame
that had outgrown his uniform.

"Good-morning, gentlemen," said he; "and I daresay you guess my business.
I'm to take you on board as soon as you can have your boxes ready."

We asked him if he would do us the honour to share our breakfast:
whereupon he nodded.

"To tell you the truth, I was about to suggest it myself. Eh? What have
we? Grilled kidneys? Good."

I called to the waiter to fetch another dish of kidneys.

"_And_ a spatchcock," added our guest. "They're famous, here, for
spatchcock. _And_, yes, I think we'll say an anchovy toast. Tea? Well,
perhaps, at this time of the morning--with a poker in it."

This allusion to a poker we did not understand; but fortunately the waiter
did, and brought a glassful of rum, which Mr. Strangways--for so he had
made himself known to us--tipped into his tea, assuring us that the great
Nelson had ever been wont to refer to this--his favourite mixture--as
"the pride of the morning."

"By the way," he went on, with his mouth full of kidney, "the second
lieutenant tells me you were in luck's way last night."

To this we modestly agreed, and hoped that the prisoners had arrived
safely on board.

He grinned. "You may lay to that. We had to club half a dozen of them as
soon as they were lifted aboard. When I say 'we' I ought to add that I
was in my hammock and never heard a word of it, being a heavy sleeper.
_That,_" said Mr. Strangways pensively, "is my one fault."

We attempted to convey by our silence that Mr. Strangways' single fault
was a trifling, a venial one.

"It'll hinder my prospects, all the same." He nodded. "You mark my
words." He nodded again, and helped himself to a round of buttered toast.
"But I'm told," he went on, "there was an unholy racket. They couldn't
do much, having the jollies on both pair of paws; but a party in
mother-o'-pearl buttons made a speech about the liberty of the subject, in
a voice that carried pretty nearly to Gosport: and the first lieutenant,
being an old woman, and afraid of the ship's losing reputation while he
was in charge, told them all to be good boys and he would speak to the
Captain when he came aboard; an