At this time there was no passing in any sea-port, but before three captains. Oscar and Edmund, therefore, proceeded to town. The anxious hour, big with the fate of many a middy, arrived. The friends, accordingly, having already got through their first examination with success, now wended their way to the great centre of naval hopes and fears, to answer such final queries as it might be judged necessary to put to them. Entering an ante-room, they approached a standing group of youngsters, who, probably, had not much interest to smooth their path, for their conversation chiefly turned on subjects of discontent. One, whose name was Bullen, and who had once been a messmate of Ormond's, seemed to be chief spokesman. He was growling at the additional difficulty which, he asserted, there was now every day in passing. "A young man might know it all well enough aboard," he said, "but to have a parcel of old-wigs staring a fellow in the face, and asking him puzzlers, why, it was enough to scatter the brains of any one of common modesty!" "If that is all," said one of his companions, for middies are not ceremonious, "there is no fear of you, Bullen: your modesty will never stand in your way!" "I hope not," answered Bullen, "nor any thing else, if I can help it. At any rate, I should be sorry to be quite so soft a one as Armstrong! Only think," he continued, turning to Ormond, "only think of that foolish fellow Armstrong! One of the old-wigs asked him (saw he was soft, I suppose) the simplest question in the world, just to try him. Well, old-wig stares him in the face, and looking devilish knowing, says, 'Suppose yourself, Sir, in a gale of wind on a lee shore, the ship in great danger of going on the rocks, when, the wind suddenly shifting, you are taken all aback, what, Sir, would you do in this critical juncture?' Instead of answering, 'Clap on sail, and put out to sea,' poor Armstrong took it for granted he should not have been asked the question if it were not a puzzler, and was so confounded, that he looked like a fool, and had not a word to say, till the old-wigs themselves were all obliged to laugh out." At this moment Bullen was sent for to attend the said old-wigs, as he called them; and though he still tried to bluster, he coloured to the very roots of his hair at the awful summons. On his return, however, he came laughing and swaggering, and bolting into the midst of the still standing group, he seized a button of Ormond's coat with one hand, and of Edmund's with the other, and began to tell his story. "Have you passed? have you passed?" cried many voices. "Have I passed!" repeated Bullen. "There is no difficulty in passing." "I thought it was very difficult, a short time since," observed Ormond.