“One day far back in the fifties of last century a sailing ship came round from Portsmouth into Plymouth Sound, where the fleet lay. Among the passengers was a little midshipman fresh from his apprenticeship in the ‘Victory.’ He scrambled aboard the Admiral’s ship, and with the assurance of thirteen marched up to a splendid figure in blue and gold, and said, handing him a letter: ‘Here, my man, give this to the Admiral.’ The man in blue and gold smiled, took the letter, and opened it. ‘Are you the Admiral?’ said the boy. ‘Yes, I’m the Admiral.’ He read the letter, and patting the boy on the head, said: ‘You must stay and have dinner with me.’ ‘I think,’ said the boy, ‘I should like to be getting on to my ship.’ He spoke as though the British Navy had fallen to his charge. The Admiral laughed, and took him down to dinner. That night the boy slept aboard the ‘Calcutta,’ a vessel of 84 guns, given to the British Navy by an Indian merchant at a cost of £84,000. It was the day of small things and of sailing-ships. The era of the ironclad and the ‘Dreadnought’ had not dawned.” I think I must give the first place to one of the first of my Captains who was the seventh son of the last Vice-Chancellor of England, Sir Lancelot Shadwell. The Vice-Chancellor used to bathe in the Thames with his seven sons every morning. My Shadwell was about the greatest Saint on earth. The sailors called him, somewhat profanely, “Our Heavenly Father.” He was once heard to say, “Damn,” and the whole ship was upset. When, as Midshipmen, we punished one of our mess-mates for abstracting his cheese, he was extremely angry with us, and asked us all what right we had to interfere with his cheese. He always had the Midshipmen to breakfast with him, and when we were seasick he gave us champagne and ginger-bread nuts. As he went in mortal fear of his own steward, who bossed him utterly, he would say: “I think the aroma has rather gone out of this champagne. Give it to the young gentlemen.” The steward would reply: “Now you know very well, Sir, the aroma _ain’t_ gone out of this ’ere champagne”; but all the same we got it. He always slept in a hammock, and I remember he kept his socks in the head clews ready to put on in case of a squall calling him suddenly on deck. I learned from him nearly all that I know. He taught me how to predict eclipses and occultations, and I suppose I took more lunar observations than any Midshipman ever did before.