Robert Stopford and General Wetherall.
This was the only service I saw in the navy--for within a year of that
time I got my discharge, and once more joined a whaler."

Old Tom's account of these two gallant exploits was received by all
hands with great applause, for that is just the sort of work in which
seamen delight, and I know that all of us wished we had been with him.
I need scarcely say that the Lieutenant Edmund Lyons of those days was
afterwards the well-known Admiral Lord Lyons, who, from that
commencement, won his way up to his well-deserved honours.

Two days after our encounter with the Dutch gentleman on shore, the
captain sent for Newman into his cabin. He was some time away; and when
he came forward, I saw that his countenance wore an unusually pleased
expression.

"What has happened?" I asked.

"Why, the captain tells me that the stranger we met the other day is a
Mr Von Kniper, some great man or other, with whom he has long been
acquainted; and that he has sent to request the captain to bring me to
dine with him. The captain is very good-natured about it, and says that
he shall be very happy to take me. But it will be difficult to find a
dress to go in. It will never do to appear in a round jacket. So,
taking all things into consideration, I think that I shall decline the
honour."

"That would be a pity," said I. "You don't know to what the visit may
lead."

"To be stared at and patronised as the common sailor who can draw and
talk German; and then to have the cold shoulder turned towards me the
next day, or to be passed unrecognised!" he answered, with no little
bitterness. "I am more independent, and safer from annoyance, in the
position I have chosen to occupy. I'll not go out of it."

I tried to reason him out of his resolution.

"It may be a turning-point in your fortune," I observed.

"There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads
on to fortune," he repeated. "You don't suppose that the flood will
ever set in for me. The current has been too long running the other way
for me ever to expect it to change. I am content to let it continue its
old course, and swim merrily with it."

Had Newman been left to himself, I do not know that he would have
altered his opinion; but soon after this the captain again sent to see
him.

"Well, Jack, I must needs go where the wind drives," he remarked, as he
came forward. "Our skipper is certainly a very good-natu