o show Lord Tadcaster the berths. His lordship must be
good enough to choose, because the doctor--couldn't.

"Why not?"

"Brought to, sir--for the present--by--well, by grief."

"Brought to by grief! Who the deuce is grief? No riddles on the
quarter-deck, if you please, sir."

"Oh no, sir. I assure you he is awfully cut up; and he is having his cry
out in my cabin."

"Having his cry out! why, what for?"

"Leaving his wife, sir."

"Oh, is that all?"

"Well, I don't wonder," cried little Tadcaster warmly. "She is, oh,
so beautiful!" and a sudden blush o'erspread his pasty cheeks. "Why on
earth didn't we bring her along with us here?" said he, suddenly opening
his eyes with astonishment at the childish omission.

"Why, indeed?" said the captain comically, and dived below, attended by
the well-disciplined laughter of Lieutenant Fitzroy, who was too good
an officer not to be amused at his captain's jokes. Having acquitted
himself of that duty--and it is a very difficult one sometimes--he
took Lord Tadcaster to the main-deck, and showed him two comfortable
sleeping-berths that had been screened off for him and Dr. Staines; one
of these was fitted with a standing bed-place, the other had a cot
swung in it. Fitzroy offered him the choice, but hinted that he himself
preferred a cot.

"No, thank you," says my lord mighty dryly.

"All right," said Fitzroy cheerfully. "Take the other, then, my lord."

His little lordship cocked his eye like a jackdaw, and looked almost as
cunning. "You see," said he, "I have been reading up for this voyage."

"Oh, indeed! Logarithms?"

"Of course not."

"What then?"

"Why, 'Peter Simple'--to be sure."

"Ah, ha!" said Fitzroy, with a chuckle that showed plainly he had some
delicious reminiscences of youthful study in the same quarter.

The little lord chuckled too, and put one finger on Fitzroy's shoulder,
and pointed at the cot with another. "Tumble out the other side, you
know--slippery hitches--cords cut--down you come flop in the middle of
the night."

Fitzroy's eye flashed merriment: but only for a moment. His countenance
fell the next. "Lord bless you," said he sorrowfully, "all that game
is over now. Her Majesty's ship!--it is a church afloat. The service is
going to the devil, as the old fogies say."

"Ain't you sorry?" says the little lord, cocking his eye again like the
bird hereinbefore mentioned.

"Of course I am."

"Then I'll take the standing bed."

"All