umbled tumultuously into
Bachelors' Hall.

"What!--Where!--How!--You don't mean it!" they exclaimed, coming to a
sudden stand, like three pillars of snow-clad astonishment.

"Ay," replied the doctor, who affected to be quite cool upon all
occasions, and rather cooler than usual if the occasion was more than
ordinarily exciting--"ay, we _do_ mean it. Old Rogan has got the
packet, and is even now disembowelling it."

"More than that," interrupted the skipper, who sat smoking as usual by
the stove, with his hands in his breeches pockets--"more than that, I
saw him dissecting into the very marrow of the thing; so if we don't
storm the old admiral in his cabin, he'll go to sleep over these prosy
yarns that the governor-in-chief writes to him, and we'll have to
whistle for our letters till midnight."

The skipper's remark was interrupted by the opening of the outer door
and the entrance of the butler. "Mr Rogan wishes to see you, sir,"
said that worthy to the accountant.

"I'll be with him in a minute," he replied, as he threw off his capote
and proceeded to unwind himself as quickly as his multitudinous haps
would permit.

By this time Harry Somerville and Hamilton were busily occupied in a
similar manner, while a running fire of question and answer, jesting
remark and bantering reply, was kept up between the young men, from
their various apartments and the hall. The doctor was cool, as usual,
and impudent. He had a habit of walking up and down while he smoked,
and was thus enabled to look in upon the inmates of the several
sleeping-rooms, and make his remarks in a quiet, sarcastic manner, the
galling effect of which was heightened by his habit of pausing at the
end of every two or three words, to emit a few puffs of smoke. Having
exhausted a good deal of small talk in this way, and having, moreover,
finished his pipe, the doctor went to the stove to refill and relight.

"What a deal of trouble you do take to make yourself comfortable!" said
he to the skipper, who sat with his chair tilted on its hind legs, and a
pillow at his back.

"No harm in that, doctor," replied the skipper, with a smile.

"No harm, certainly, but it looks uncommonly lazy-like."

"What does?"

"Why, putting a pillow at your back, to be sure."

The doctor was a full-fleshed, muscular man, and owing to this fact it
mattered little to him whether his chair happened to be an easy one or
not. As the skipper sometimes remarked, he carrie