after this occurrence, the
frigate was sent to Gibraltar. She there took on board several
passengers for Malta. One was a bear, which was sent as a present to
the captain of a line-of-battle ship on the station, from some consul in
Africa, who knew that he was fond of pets; another was a young gentleman
going to travel in the East. The captain had given him a passage, as he
was a relation of some brother officer who could not take him himself.
He had been offered, and accepted, a berth in the gun-room. Neither
Jack nor Murray had seen him, nor had they heard his name before they
sailed. The next morning, after they had lost sight of the rock, when
they went on deck, who should they see walking up and down, with an air
of no little consequence, and having a pair of lilac kid gloves on his
hands, but Bully Pigeon. Jack and Murray forgot all his bad qualities,
and only thought of him as an old schoolfellow. So they went up to him,
and cordially put out their hands.

"Why, Pigeon, how are you, old fellow? Who'd have thought of seeing you
here?" exclaimed Jack.

Pigeon drew himself up. "You must have made a mistake; I--I don't
remember you," he answered.

"Oh! but we do you, very well, at Eagle House. I'm Jack Rogers, here's
Murray. We two came together. You didn't leave, either, before us,"
said Jack. "Oh! you must remember all about it."

"Ah! now I think I do," replied Pigeon, extending the tips of his
fingers. "There was another fellow went to sea at the same time. Paddy
something--Oh! ye-es, I remember."

"Ah! Paddy Adair, you mean. Poor fellow, he was lost in the _Onyx_,"
answered Jack, in a sad tone.

"Oh! I remember--he was always a harum-scarum vagabond," said Pigeon,
in a sneering way.

"He was as true a fellow as ever stepped!" exclaimed Jack indignantly.
"If he were here, Pigeon, you would not speak so of him." The bully, as
usual, was silenced. It was not Jack's way to cut anybody, but neither
he nor Murray felt inclined to have any intimate conversation with their
old schoolfellow. Still they could not help asking him about the
school, and the various changes which had taken place since they left.

"Well, I'm glad it prospers," exclaimed Jack. "It was a first-rate,
jolly good school; there was no humbug about it. I spent many happy
days there."

Murray echoed these sentiments. Pigeon of course sneered, and observed
that, "though there were a good many noblemen, and sons of ge