He ran his eye over it, and closed it contemptuously: “Pirates, and hurricanes! _I_ never fell in with pirates nor hurricanes: I have heard of a breeze, and a gale, but I never knew a seaman worth his salt say 'hurricane.' Get another log-book, Mr. Sharpe; put down that it begins this day at noon; and enter that Captain Robarts came on deck, found the ship in a miserable condition, took the command, mustered the officers and men, and stopped the ship's company's grog for a week for receiving him with hats on.” Even Sharpe, that walking Obedience, was taken aback. “Stop--the ship's company's--grog--for a week, sir?” “Yes, sir, for a week; and if you fling my orders back in my face instead of clapping on sail to execute them, I'll have you towed ashore on a grating. Your name is Sharpe; well my name is Dammedsharpe, and so you'll find.” In short, the new captain came down on the ship like a blight. He was especially hard on Dodd: nothing that commander had done was right, nor, had he done the contrary, would that have been right: he was disgracefully behind time; and he ought to have put in to the Isle of France, which would have retarded him: his rope bulwarks were lubberly: his rudder a disgrace to navigation: he, Robarts, was not so green as to believe that any master had really sailed sixteen hundred miles with it, and if he had, more shame for him. Briefly, a marine criticaster. All this was spoken _at_ Dodd--a thing no male does unless he is an awful snob--and grieved him, it was so unjust. He withdrew wounded to the little cabin he was entitled to as a passenger, and hugged his treasure for comfort. He patted the pocket-book, and said to it, “Never _you_ mind! The greater Tartar he is, the less likely to sink you or run you on a lee shore.” With all his love of discipline, Robarts was not so fond of the ship as Dodd. While his repairs were going on he was generally ashore, and by this means missed a visit. Commodore Collier, one of the smartest sailors afloat, espied the Yankee makeshift from the quarter-deck of his vessel, the _Salamanca,_ fifty guns. In ten minutes he was under the _Agra's_ stern inspecting it; then came on board, and was received in form by Sharpe and the other officers. “Are you the master of this ship, sir?” he asked. “No, commodore. I am the first mate: the captain is ashore.” “I am sorry for it. I want to talk about his rudder.” “Oh, _he_ had nothing to do with that,” replied Sharpe, eagerly: “that was our dear old captain: he is on board. Young gentleman! ask Captain Dodd to oblige me by coming on deck! Hy! and Mr. Fullalove too.” “Young gentleman?” inquired Collier. “What the devil officer is that?” “That is a name we give the middies; I don't know why.” “Nor I neither; ha! ha!” Dodd and Fullalove came on deck, and Commodore Collier bestowed the highest compliments on the “makeshift.” Dodd begged him to transfer them to the real inventor, and introduced Fullalove.