bit, Don Enriques. To begin with, the midshipmen never dine with
the lieutenants, and they don't live half as well as we do. In the next
place, you are a great deal more serious, and a great deal more dignified
that English midshipmen are. With us they are always playing tricks with
each other. We may be officers on board the ship, but when we are among
ourselves we are just like other boys of the same age."

"But you do not consider yourself a boy, Don Estevan?"

"I do indeed," Stephen laughed; "and no one thinks himself a man until he
is quite a senior midshipman."

"But if you play tricks on each other you must quarrel sometimes?"

"Oh, yes, we quarrel, and then we have a fight, and then we are good
friends again."

"Ah! Do you fight with swords or pistols?"

Stephen laughed. "We fight with our fists."

"What, like common people!" the young Chilian said, greatly shocked.

"Just the same, except that we fight a little better. That is the way we
always settle quarrels among boys in England, and a very good way it is.
One gets a black eye or something of that sort, and there is an end of it.
As for fighting with swords or pistols, I do not know what would happen if
two midshipmen were to fight a duel. In the first place they would get
into a frightful row, and in the second place they would be the
laughing-stock of the whole fleet. Of course, in a country like this,
where a blow is considered as the deadliest of insults, things are
different; but in England it is not viewed in the same light. Everyone
knows something of boxing, that is, of the proper way of using the fists,
and it has come to be the national way of fighting among the common people
and among boys of all classes."

"And would you, for example, Don Estevan, consent to fight with a boy or
with a man of the peasant class if he injured you?"

"Certainly I would," Stephen said. "I don't know that I would fight a big
man, because evidently I should have very little chance with him; but if I
quarrelled with a fellow my own age, we should of course pitch into each
other without any question of rank."

Exclamations of surprise broke from the other midshipmen as Stephen made
these statements in very broken Spanish. He was questioned over and over
again by them to make sure that they had not misunderstood him.

"You seem to think it terrible," Stephen said; "but you don't stand on
rank yourselves when you fight. When you board an enemy's ship you fight