But as soon as the door is shut, he turns again to the marine, and says— “I’m deucedly sorry, now, that I did not refuse.” “Are you?” says the soldier, relapsing into his loyal tune again. By and by, however, comes two o’clock; the ward-room dinner is placed on the table; the drum beats the ‘Roast Beef;’ the officer of the forenoon watch is sent for, as usual, to relieve his messmate on deck, as I have before described; and, in due course, after strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage, in ‘full togs,’ nursing his anger, in order to let the captain see that he is hurt, he is told that dinner is ready in the cabin. In he marches, accordingly, and there takes his appointed seat as doggedly as if he were nailed to the chair. The pea-soup is discussed in pretty solemn silence; but while the remove is under adjustment, the captain says to his offended officer, “Come, Mr. Haultight, shall you and I have a glass of wine? What shall it be?” By these few magical words, and in this single glass of sherry, is forgotten, for ever and ever, all the previous irritation. It is not by the words, so much as by the tone and manner of saying them, that the captain makes the officer feel how anxious he is to have the good understanding restored, or that he regrets what has passed. Of course, if the officer be not one of those pig-headed and inflexible fellows, upon whom all sense of kindness is wasted, he seizes the bottle, and filling his glass, replies, “With all my heart, sir.” And there, in all probability, is an end of a matter which, but for this early opportunity of putting things to rights, might perhaps have rankled long in the mind of the officer, and given rise to acts of insubordination, as injurious to himself as to the public service. It may not be useless to suggest here, to young people, that in most cases of dispute that arise between gentlemen, the smallest voluntary apology is beyond calculation more satisfactory, from its affording a far more complete reparation to wounded honour, than any conceivable amount of compulsory acknowledgment. The rough savage, who is acquainted with no measure in these things, takes his revenge at the point of the scalping-knife. But a gentleman, in a widely-different spirit, and who knows that even the slightest admission of error causes more pain than he can ever deliberately wish to inflict, will always catch with eagerness at the first symptoms of regret on the part of his antagonist, being quite certain that the less he exacts, the more of what is really worthy of his acceptance will be given him. Besides which, instead of urging another into permanent mortification and perhaps enmity, he may manage to secure, by well-timed moderation, both the gratitude and the respect of a man who might otherwise become permanently his foe.