"What does this mean, father?" asked Christy, dropping into a chair as if overwhelmed by the contents of the envelope. "It means just what it says, my son," replied Captain Passford. "But I know that it is necessary now for me to explain that this promotion is none of my doing; for I have not asked it, I have not urged it, I have not made the remotest suggestion that you should be made a lieutenant-commander, as I have not done on any former occasion." "That is enough, father; your plea of not guilty would have been enough to satisfy me," added Christy. "I prevented your appointment to the command of the Chateaugay, and procured your position as second lieutenant of the Bellevite; and these two instances are absolutely all the requests I have ever made to the department in relation to you," protested the captain. "That helps the matter very much," answered Christy. "I have been the victim of supposed partiality, 'a friend at court' and all that sort of thing, till I am disgusted with it." "And all that has been in consequence of your over-sensitiveness rather than anything that ever was said about you." "Perhaps it was. But as a lieutenant-commander I might still remain as executive officer of the Bellevite, for Captain Breaker has been a commander for over two years," suggested Christy. "The department has made another disposition of you, and without any hint or suggestion from me, my son," said Captain Passford, as he took another envelope from his pocket, and presented it to his son. "This came to me by this morning's mail; and I have withheld the commission till I received it." "And what may this be, father?" asked Christy, looking from the missive to the captain's face, which was glowing with smiles, for he was as proud of his only son as he ought to have been. "Christy, you remind me of some old ladies I have met, who, when they receive a letter, wonder for five or ten minutes whom it is from before they break the envelope, when a sight of the contents would inform them instantly," added the captain, laughing. "But I am afraid the contents of this envelope will be like the explosion of a mine to me, and therefore I am not just like the old ladies you have met," returned the lieutenant-commander. "One mine a day let off in my face is about all I can stand." "Open the envelope!" urged his father rather impatiently. "It never rains but it pours!" exclaimed Christy, when he had looked over the paper it enclosed. "I am appointed to the command of the St. Regis! I think some one who gives names to our new vessels must have spent a summer with Paul Smith at his hotel by the river and lake of that name; and the same man probably selected the name of Chateaugay. I suppose it is some little snapping gunboat like the Bronx; but I don't object to her on that account." "She is nothing like the Bronx, for she is more than twice as large; and you have already seen some service on her deck."