The master was standing about ten feet from us. "Mr Pumpbolt," said the commodore, "come down with me to the cabin, if you please." And forthwith he stumped aft, and was in act to descend, when Lanyard caught his eye. "Oh, I had forgotten.--Here, Mr Lanyard, if you please." Dick walked aft to him. "Mr Lanyard, I had at first intended to have left the tender with the Cerberus, but, on second thoughts, as I may require all the people on the voyage home, I have determined to take you with me. That is, if you think the craft capable of making tolerable weather of it." Don Ricardo was near pitching his hat over the mizen peak, and shouting aloud for joy, but that "idol, ceremony," restrained him. "Strong, sir! Here, Shavings,"--the carpenter's mate of the Gazelle, who had been promoted as a functionary of his in the Midge, and who had bested to come on board along with us, was passing forward at the moment--"Here, Shavings, Sir Oliver wants to know whether we consider the Midge capable of making the voyage from this to the West Indies; if we do not, _we are to be left on the coast here_." "Come--come," said the commodore, laughing, "no _leading_, Mr Lanyard." The lieutenant began to think he had gone a little too far; and feeling somewhat _out_, looked towards Shavings for relief. The old carpenter, however, was not so prompt as he calculated on. His honesty appeared more stubborn than suited him--until he repeated the words, slewing them a little to his own side, to suit the emergency. "Why, Mr Shavings, we are to be kept cruising about here, as tender to the Cerberus one day, and to Heaven knows who the next, while the Gazelle goes to the West Indies, and so round by Portsmouth, and all because the felucca is not considered sea-worthy, nor competent to the middle voyage." "Oh," said Shavings, with a long drawl, "THAT is what you want to know, sir?" He then faced right round on Sir Oliver. "Why, sir, that 'ere little feluccre is as strong as well-seasoned Spanish oak and copper bolts can make her. The smell of the hold is so bad, sir, that we has to pump fresh water into her every morning watch to sweeten her, sir. Strong? if one half of her beams were sawn up into firewood, it would boil the frigate's coppers for a month; and the feluccre that is, Sir Oliver, would be swifter by half a knot, and none the weaker; and her bottom--oh, it is a perfect bed of timbers--why you might caulk them, sir; as for her bows, I believe they are strong enough for an ice-boat on the Neva; and such transomes--why, sir, I would rather be in her in a hurricane, than ere a fourty-four in the sarvice--were she even the old Gaz"---- Here the poor fellow saw he had in his zeal and desire to break away from this accursed coast, gone somewhat farther than he intended, so making his obeisance, he hauled off. Sir Oliver smiled.