As to Billy’s adieu to the ship _Rights-of-Man_, which the boarding lieutenant, in a deferential way, had indeed reported to him, Captain Vere, more as a good story than aught else (having mistakenly understood it as a satiric sally), had but thought so much the better of the impressed man for it; as a military sailor, admiring the spirit that could take an arbitrary enlistment so merrily and sensibly. The foretopman’s conduct, too, so far as it had fallen under the captain’s notice, had confirmed the first happy augury, while the new recruit’s qualities as a _sailor-man_ seemed to be such that he had thought of recommending him to the executive officer for promotion to a place that would more frequently bring him under his own observation, namely, the captaincy of the mizen-top, replacing there in the starboard-watch a man not so young whom partly for that reason he deemed less fitted for the post. Be it parenthesised here that since the mizen-topmen have not to handle such breadths of heavy canvas as the lower sails on the mainmast and foremast, a young man if of the right stuff not only seems best adapted to duty there, but, in fact, is generally selected for the captaincy of that top, and the company under him are light hands, and often but striplings. In sum, Captain Vere had from the beginning deemed Billy Budd to be what in the naval parlance of the time was called a ‘_King’s bargain_,’ that is to say, for His Britannic Majesty’s Navy a capital investment at small outlay or none at all. After a brief pause, during which the reminiscences above mentioned passed vividly through his mind, he weighed the import of Claggart’s last suggestion conveyed in the phrase ‘a man-trap under his ruddy-tipped daisies,’ and the more he weighed it the less reliance he felt in the informer’s good faith. Suddenly he turned upon him: ‘Do you come to me, master-at-arms, with so foggy a tale? As to Budd, cite me an act or spoken word of his confirmatory of what you in general charge against him. Stay,’ drawing nearer to him, ‘heed what you speak. Just now and in a case like this, there is a yard-arm-end for the false witness.’ ‘Ah, your honour!’ sighed Claggart, mildly shaking his shapely head as in sad deprecation of such unmerited severity of tone. Then bridling--erecting himself as in virtuous self-assertion, he circumstantially alleged certain words and acts which collectively, if credited, led to presumptions mortally inculpating Budd, and for some of these averments, he added, substantiating proof was not far.