They described me as Sub-Lieutenant William Wilson, the celebrated United Service half-back, and the brilliant naval officer, specially appointed to command the _Hector’s_ gun-room by the Lords of the Admiralty as a mark of their appreciation of my services! Angry! My blessed potatoes! I sent for my dear cousin and the Angel and gave them six of the best over the gun-room table—as hard as I could lay it on—the first three for making their Sub look a fool, and the last three for disobeying the Captain’s orders. I know which were the hardest whacks, and I didn’t care a biscuit what Bob’s sister, Daisy, thought or wrote. They went away muttering that the dinner was worth it—every time—which was meant to be rude, because they both had got it into their noddles that they’d actually given me a ’leg up,’ and couldn’t see that they’d only made a laughing-stock of me. First of all the Commander sent for me on the quarterdeck. He had Perkins there as a witness, and before I ever had a chance of saying anything, bellowed out, ’You’re the "brilliant naval officer," are you? You’re a fool, and an idiot, and a useless idiot. You can’t keep order in the gun-room, and the sooner you get out of the ship the better.’ He bellowed till the maintopmen, painting masts and yards up aloft, left off painting to listen to him. He didn’t ask me to speak, so I didn’t—said not a word—which made him almost apoplectic with rage, his ugly red face getting perfectly crimson. Every time he stopped for breath, Perkins kept on trying to tell him that perhaps it wasn’t my fault, which sprung him off again, and at last he turned round and cursed him for interfering. Perkins twisted round on his heel and hobbled off, but the Commander called for him to come back, and he did, his jolly face all tightened out. ’Did you hear the Commander curse me on the quarterdeck?’ he asked very quietly. ’I did, sir,’ I said; and he turned to the Commander, ’Very well, I shall see the Captain about it. I’m not going to stand any more of it.’ You should have seen the Commander’s face. His mouth opened, and he looked as if he would willingly have murdered the two of us, then he bounced off the quarterdeck, and into his cabin just inside the battery, and banged the door, like the childish bully he was. As he didn’t come out again, I went below. Then the Skipper sent for me. He was grinning all over his face: ’Those two boys have made a fool of you, Wilson; tut! tut! stop their leave—whack ’em both.’ ’I’ve beaten them, sir, already,’ I told him, ’and given them six apiece—as hard as I could,’ and explained to him that I had no idea why they went ashore. ’Tut! tut! no harm done; they got their dinner all right; tell ’em to lunch with me, tut! tut!—if they can sit down—I’d have done it myself for a good dinner—thirty years ago.’