That night, at the Pen, after the guests had all left, Sir Peter called upon me to give an account of my day's doings, to tell him what I thought of the _Wasp_, and to produce and read my list of alterations needed to complete the equipment of the schooner. Of all of these he graciously approved, adding a few suggestions of his own; and on the following morning, after going on board the hooker with me and examining her inside and out, he gave orders for the whole of the work to be proceeded with forthwith. As there were no other ships in port refitting at the moment, it was a slack time at the dockyard, and almost the whole of its resources were available to expedite the work, in consequence of which the schooner was ready for sea a fortnight from the day on which I first boarded her. Meanwhile, the Admiral had made out and presented to me my acting order; while, for my own part, I had been busy all day and every day, either at the dockyard, superintending the work being done to the _Wasp_, or in hunting up a crew for her. And as I attached very considerable importance to the quality of my crew, and was quite determined to have the very best I could obtain, a large proportion of my time was spent in hunting for good men. Here it was that I found the services of Henderson, late quartermaster of the _Europa_, of especial value, for not only did he enter for the schooner, as he had promised he would when I ran up against him as I was on my way to pay my first visit to the _Wasp_, but, being equally as anxious as myself to have the little vessel well manned, he had persuaded four good men--like himself formerly of the _Europa_, wounded in our fight with the brigantine and now convalescent--to join, thus forming at a stroke the nucleus of a first-rate crew. But he had done a good deal more than this; for in addition to the four men above referred to there were aboard the guardship about a dozen others recently discharged from the hospital and only requiring a few days of pure ocean air to set them on their pins again, and he had persuaded these also to enter. Even this, however, did not complete my obligations to the guardship, for there were aboard her three midshipmen, an assistant surgeon, and a captain's clerk, all of whom had been separated from their ships from some chance cause, and I secured them all; the eldest of the midshipmen--named Willoughby--as master, while the other two, very quiet, respectable lads, named respectively Dundas and Hinton, I took more for their health's sake than for any other reason. The assistant surgeon was named Saunders--him I shipped as surgeon--while Millar, the captain's clerk, came with me as purser; I obtained a gunner's warrant for Henderson, to his great delight; and my remaining officers consisted of a fine, smart boatswain's mate, named Pearce, who came as boatswain, and a carpenter's mate named Mills, who came as carpenter. In addition to these, I had a