He was nearer seventy than sixty: that is to say, he was an old man as they reckon age afloat. There was a stoop about his shoulders that hinted at the burden of his years, but his eyes, blue and direct beneath ragged white eyebrows, were young enough; and a man’s eyes are the mirrors of his spirit. He stood on the quarter-deck of the armed yacht under his command, pacing slowly to and fro, with those craggy brows almost meeting above his great beak of a nose. There had been a day when a fleet would have trembled at the portent, and walked delicately, like Agag. That was when he was an admiral though, and the flag-lieutenant would have popped his head into the secretary’s cabin and murmured, “Blowing up for a storm--stand by!” Now, as he stalked with that unforgettable jerky stride of his up and down the narrow confine of the yacht’s poop, he was only a commander of the Royal Naval Reserve--a “dug-out” from the Retired List--with three curly rings of lace on the cuffs of a monkey-jacket cut in a style unfamiliar to the present generation. Aft by the ensign-staff he halted, and pulled a letter out of the breast-pocket of the quaintly-cut monkey-jacket. It had come by the morning mail, a typewritten letter, on paper bearing the crest of Admiralty, and it was worded as tactfully as circumstances and the nature of the contents would allow. It referred to the strain of war under modern conditions. It reminded the Admiral that a critical stage of the world conflict had now been reached; and the two postulates, taken in conjunction, pointed to the necessity for young men being employed in all commands afloat. Their Lordships had therefore decided, with regret ... etc. etc. That letter did what the strain of modern war had not yet done--it made the Admiral’s hand tremble: he tore it into small pieces and dropped them over the side. The stoop of his old shoulders seemed to have become suddenly accentuated. His firm mouth slackened: he looked what they said he was, an old man. “Youth will be served,” said he, and watched the last scrap of paper float away on the tide. “I daresay they know best.... They think they do ... anyway, that’s something, nowadays.” Then he drew forth an enormous bandana handkerchief, trumpeted a blast of defiance from his historic nose, and stumped forward to the bridge to take his last command to sea for the last time. * * * * * It was late the following afternoon, when the yacht was upon the port bow of a convoy of merchantmen, that the look-out at the crosstrees gave tongue. The Admiral was in the chart-house, sprawling affectionately over the chart with notebook and pencil. He enjoyed having the chart-house to himself these days. The flag-captains and navigators of bygone flagships had always bored him, fussing at either elbow whenever he looked at a chart....