was, and is, for the officer conducting it to
give the orders, "Starboard, fire!" "Port, fire!" the discharges thus
ranging from forward, aft, alternately on each side. A man who cannot
trust his ear times the interval by watch; most, I presume, trust
their counting. I once underwent an amusing _faux pas_ in this matter
of counting. Of course, the count is a serious matter; gun for gun is
diplomatically as important as an eye for an eye. My captain had heard
that an excellent precaution was to provide one's self with a
number of dried beans--with which, needless to say, a ship
abounds--corresponding to the number of guns. The receipt ran: Put
them all in one pocket, and with each gun shift a bean to the other
pocket. He proposed this to me, but I demurred; I feared I might get
mixed on the beans and omit to shift one. He did not press me, but
when I began to perform on the main deck he stood near the hatch on
the deck above, duly--or unduly--provided with beans. It was a
national salute; to the port. When I finished, he called to me: "You
have only fired twenty guns." "No, sir," I replied; "twenty-one."
"No," he repeated, "twenty; for I have a bean left." "All right!" I
returned, and I banged an appendix; after which, upon counting, it was
found the captain had twenty-two beans and the French twenty-two
guns--a "tiger" which I hope they appreciated, but am sure they did
not "return."

Our flag-officer was a veteran of 1812. He had evidently been very
handsome, to which possibly he owed three successive wives, the last
one much younger than himself. Now, in his sixties, he was still light
in his movements. He had a queer way of tripping along on the balls of
his feet, with a half-shuffling movement, his hands buried in his
pockets, with the thumbs out. He was, I fear, the sort of man capable
of wearing a frock-coat unbuttoned. It was amusing to see him walk the
poop with the captain of the ship, who out topped him by a head, was
ponderous in dimensions, with wide tread and feet like an elephant's;
yet, it was said by those who had seen, a beautiful waltzer. His son,
who was his clerk, used to say: "The old man's feet really aren't so
big, if he would not wear such shoes." When his shoes were sent up to
dry in the sun, as all sea-shoes must be at times, the midshipmen knew
the occasion as a gunboat parade. The flag-officer was styled
familiarly in the navy by the epithet Buckey; I never saw it spelled,
but the pronuncia