"Humph! I think I know the place you mention, youngster," said he, with a significant twinkle in his eye which made the other two chaplains grin, I could see, at some joke they had between them. "I'll try and call on your father, if I can find time before he leaves Portsmouth. Tell him when you get back, that old Tangent asked after him, please." "I'll make a point of doing so, sir," I replied, with a bow, repeating the name after him to make certain. "I will tell him, sir, about Old Tangent." "Old Tangent, indeed!" cried the old fellow, shaking his fat sides, while the other two examiners roared outright. "You've a pretty good stock of impudence of your own, I'm sure! Be off with you, you young rascal, or I'll pluck you as certain as I'm that Old Tangent with whom you dare to be so familiar!" His jovial face, however, belied the threat, so it did not occasion me any alarm; and, bowing again politely to the three clerical gentlemen collectively, I bent my steps, on the grin all the way, to the door of the wardroom, which was opened and shut behind me by a marine standing without. I was Last of the Mohicans, all the other fellows having taken their departure and gone ashore long before I got my own happy dismissal. "By Jove, Jack, I think you may put yourself down as passed!" said my father when I subsequently detailed the incidents of my examination, drawing a good augury from my description of what had occurred on board the gunnery ship. "He was always a knowing hand was Old Tangent; and such a remark from him to his brother examiners, would be as efficacious as a whisper in ear of the First Lord's Secretary on your behalf, my boy!" "Do you remember him, Frank? I mean the gentleman who spoke to Jack." "Oh, yes, my dear," replied Dad to this question of my mother's, "I recollect Old Tangent quite well. He was always a good-natured fellow and a capital shipmate. Why, he sang the best song of any of us in the mess on board the old _Pelican_!" "What!" exclaimed my mother, holding up her hands in pious horror at the mention of such an unclerical characteristic. "A clergyman sing songs?" "Yes, why not?" retorted Dad, who was in his jolliest mood at the prospect of my having passed my examination successfully. "They were spiritual songs of course, my dear, I assure you!" "No doubt," said mother, drily. "I think, my dear, you can `tell that yarn to the marines,' as you say in your favourite sea slang. _I_ know what sort of spirits you refer to!" At which observation they both laughed; and, naturally, I laughed too. CHAPTER FIVE. IN WHICH I REALLY "JOIN THE SERVICE."