Our admiration of the catamaran man had hardly subsided when a far more extraordinary character made his appearance. “Avast there, my hearties!” sounded the rough voice of a seaman, “and make way for the commodore.” As he spoke, the crowd of sailors and recruits opened out, and his Excellency Commodore Cockle, chief of the catamarans, was seen advancing in great state from the gangway. This potent commander, who, by the way, had performed his toilet _in transitu_, after passing through the surf, was attired in an old naval uniform coat, under which appeared his naked neck and swarthy bosom; a huge cocked-hat, “which had seen a little service,” a pair of kerseymere dress shorts, without stockings, and a swinging hanger banging at his heels, made up as strange a figure of the genus scarecrow as I ever remember to have seen out of a cornfield. “By the powers, Pat, and what have we here?” said Mick Nolan, one of the recruits, to his comrade Pat Casey. “Faith,” says Pat, “and myself can’t tell ye, unless ’tis one of them _Ingine_ rajahs, or ould Neptune himself, that should have been after shaving us off the line.” “Devil a bit,” rejoined Mick; “I’m thinking it’s something of an _Aistern_ Guy Fawkes, that’s going to play off some of his fun amongst us.” Thus speculated the jokers, whilst the commodore, fully impressed with a sense of his importance, swaggered about the deck with all the quiet pride of a high official, putting questions, and replying to the queries of old acquaintance. Alas! poor human nature! thou art everywhere essentially the same. Dear to thee is a little power and authority in any shape, and thou exhibitest thy “fantastic tricks” as much in the bells and feathers of the savage, as under the coif of the judge, or the ermine of the monarch! The “Commodore,” to whom the English cognomen of “Cockle” had been given, exercised his high functions under a commission furnished him by some wag, but of which he was quite as proud as if it had emanated from royalty itself. It was couched in the proper _lingua technica_ of such instruments, and commenced in something like the following manner: “Know all men by these presents, that our trusty and well-beloved Cockle is hereby constituted Commodore and Commander of the Catamaran Squadron, and duly empowered to exercise all the high functions thereunto appertaining. The aforesaid Cockle is authorized to render his services to all parties requiring them, on their paying for the same. All captains and commanders of his Majesty’s and the Honourable Company’s ships, and of all other ships and vessels whatsoever, are hereby required and directed to take fruit, fish, eggs, &c., from the said Cockle (if they think fit), on their paying him handsomely in the current coin of the realm, &c.”