"Well," said Commander Potvin, "that is all I have to say at present; but I am gratified, very gratified indeed, that you agree with my ideas. I will draw up and issue detailed rules for our evening entertainments, but, meanwhile, I should be obliged if you would cause these to be distributed amongst the men. They will pave the way," he added, smiling as pleasantly as he was able, and handing Pardoe a neat brown paper parcel. "They will pave the way with good intentions, and I have no doubt that within a few weeks we shall have the happiest ship's company in the whole of the British Navy." The first lieutenant, too astonished to reply, clutched the parcel and retired to the wardroom, where, flinging his cap on to the settee, he relapsed into the one armchair. "Lord!" he muttered, holding his head, "I believe the man's as mad as a hatter!" He opened the package to find therein a quantity of bound sheets. He selected one of the pamphlets at random and examined it with a sigh. "Drink and Depravity," he read. "Pots of beer cost many a tear. Be warned in time or you'll repine." "Great Caesar's ghost!" he ejaculated. "The man IS mad! To think that it should come to this. Poor, poor old _Puffin_!" A few minutes later Falland, on his way aft to visit the captain, glanced into the wardroom. Pardoe still sat in the armchair muttering softly to himself with his head bowed down between his hands. The floor, the table, and the chair were littered with tracts of all the colours of the rainbow. "Saints preserve us!" the navigator murmured. The next really interesting incidents occurred on Sunday morning, when the commanding officer made his usual rounds of the ship and inspected the men. So far nothing had officially been said about the new _regime_; but, in some mysterious way, the ship's company had an inkling of the happy days in store for them, while, through a lavish distribution of tracts, literature which, I am sorry to relate, they solemnly burnt in the galley fire, they were fully aware of their new captain's notions on the engrossing subject of drink. Accordingly, to please him, and to show that they were not the hardened sinners, seasoned reprobates, and generally idle and dissolute characters he perhaps might take them for, they fell in at divisions on that Sabbath morn wearing their most cherubic and innocent expressions, and their newest and most immaculate raiment.