We must however admit--for the truth cannot be blinked in this respect--that there was a certain air of seediness about both the captain and Mr. Frank Curtis, which neither the bullying insolence of the former nor the impertinent self-sufficiency of the latter could altogether throw into the shade. It was evident that they had lost the confidence of their tailors and hatters--and even of their washerwomen;--for their garments might have been less thread-bare, and their wristbands a trifle cleaner. We say “wristbands,” because those were the only portions of their shirts which met the eye--the captain’s frogged coat and Mr. Curtis’s faded double-breasted waistcoat being each buttoned up to its owner’s throat. “Waiter-r!” vociferated the gallant officer, when about a minute and a half had elapsed from the time that the orders had been given for the repast. “Yes, sir--coming, sir,” cried the functionary thus addressed, as he hurried away in quite another direction. “Be Jasus!” ejaculated the captain, thumping his fist so vigorously down upon the table that the pepper box danced the polka with the mustard-pot, and the knives and forks performed a _pas de quatre_. “Is that boiled por-r-rk and paze pudding afther coming to-day at all, at all?” “Just coming, sir!” said the waiter, under no excitement whatever, though in an immense bustle--for waiters always remain cool and imperturbable when most in a hurry. “If it don’t come in sivin seconds, ye villain,” thundered the captain, “I’ll skin ye alive!” “Very good, sir,” said the waiter, as he hastened to attend upon some new-comers. “The beauty of the French eating-houses is that the moment you order things they appear on the table by magic,” observed Frank Curtis, in a tone loud enough to let every one present know that he had been in France. “When I was in Paris--on that secret mission from the English Government, you know, captain-----” “Be Jasus! and I remimber quite well,” exclaimed the gallant officer. “’Twas at the same time that I wint to offer my swor-r-d and services to the Imperor of the Tur-r-rks--the Sulthan, I mane.” “Just so,” said Frank. “Well--as I was going to tell you----” “Two biled pork--two pease pudding--for gentle-_men_,” cried the waiter at this juncture, as he set the plates upon the table. “One--bread--one greens--one taturs--for gentle-_men_.” The captain and Mr. Curtis fell to work upon the delicacies thus placed before them; and after an interval of silence, during which the boiled pork and _et ceteras_ disappeared with astonishing rapidity, the latter leaning across the table, said in a low whisper, “It was a deuced lucky thing that I met my friend Styles just now; for if he hadn’t lent me this sovereign, we might have gone without dinner as well as without breakfast.” “Be Jasus! and that’s thrue enough, Frank!” returned the gallant officer, likewise in _sotto voce_. “Where did ye appint to mate Misther Styles again this afternoon?”