Captain Reud replied, "It is not, my lord, so much the fault of Mr Rattlin as it would, at the first blush, appear to be. He himself pressed a wicked, mischievous young blackguard, who was appointed the young gentleman's servant. Incredible as the fact may appear, my lord, he contrived, in a manner that Dr Thompson can best explain to you, to destroy all the clothes of his young master merely in the wantonness of his malice. I know that Mr Rattlin is well provided with money, and that he will take the first opportunity again to assume the garb of a gentleman; and I do assure your lordship that no man becomes it better." "Sir, if this youth be Mr Rattlin--I believe it--the very oldest blood in the country flows in his veins--but it does seem a kind of species of miracle how a scion of that noble house should stand before me, his father's friend, with two black eyes and a ragged jacket--there may be some mistake, after all. I was going, Mr Rattlin, to take you with me to my hotel, having matters of the utmost importance to communicate to you; but, oh no!--I am not fastidious, so we had better first have a little private conference in the after--gentlemen, will you excuse us?"--bowing round--"Captain Reud will perhaps do me the favour to be of the party?" So, into the after-cabin we three went, I burning with impatience, and speechless with agitation, supposing that the much-coveted secret of my parentage would be at length unfolded to me. Lord Whiffledale and Captain Reud being seated with their backs to the cabin-windows, and I standing before them with the light full upon my disfigured face, I must have had a great deal more the look of a battered blackguard, being tried for petty larceny, than a young gentleman on the eve of being acknowledged the heir to greatness by a very noble lord. There was a pause for some minutes, during which Lord Whiffledale was preparing to be imposing, and the light of mischief began to beam with incipient insanity in Reud's eye. "Certainly," I said to myself, "he will not dare to practise one of his mad pranks upon a lord of the Admiralty!" What will not madness dare? His lordship, having taken snuff very solemnly, and looked round him with a calm circumspection, fixing his dull eye upon me, and wagging his head, with an equable motion, slowly up and down, spoke as follows:--