This led to a brief argument between Captain Acton and Sir William, who was making a prodigious breakfast off a large crab, which he affirmed was much more delicate eating than the lobster, as the shrimp is sweeter than the prawn, though people whom the actor Quin loved to deride were of a different opinion. He had begun with crab, and was now ploughing heartily through a dish of eggs and bacon, with a view to letting go his anchor in some savoury sausages. Captain Acton fed capriciously, as a man who thinks of his digestion more than his appetite. After breakfast the Captain went to his library to transact certain business with a lawyer and one or two others, Miss Acton to the housekeeper's room, there to receive certain poor people, and Sir William Lawrence, filling his pipe, waited in the grounds until Captain Acton should appear, and diverted himself as best he could with conversation with the gardeners and in admiring the springing flowers. He came from the kitchen garden and was standing in the middle of the lawn, where he obtained a view of the sea betwixt the bluff on which stood the windmill and the other bluff on which stood the lighthouse. He sent his gaze in the direction of Old Harbour. It was a heedless gaze. He took no particular note. Alongside the wharves a number of small vessels were moored. They somewhat crowded the eye with their rigging and spars. The brig-of-war lay in her accustomed place off the pier. Apparently it was not Lieutenant Tupman's intention to put to sea that day. All of a sudden the Admiral's gaze, that was somewhat heedless--that of a man who takes in a general prospect without regard to particulars--grew intent: his eyes were fixed on Old Harbour. In a minute they grew more than intent: astonishment dilated them, and they were not without the sparkle of alarm. He rubbed his eyes, and removing his pipe from his lips strained his gaze once more at the shipping in the Harbour. "Good God!" he ejaculated, "where is she?" Only a little bit of sea lay within his sight; that which he had seen ran in blue ripples between the points of cliff which framed the entrance to Old Harbour. Though the scene was distant, his sight, for a man of advanced age, was fairly good, and even all that distance off, he could without much difficulty distinguish the fine lines of the _Aurora's_ masts bearing their trucks high above the spars and rigging of the vessels abaft and ahead of her. He walked to a bed of flowers at which an under-gardener was at work, and said to the man: "Have you good eyes?" "I can see a good bit, your honour." "Do you know the _Minorca_?" "Oh yes, sir." "Could you distinguish her if she's in the Harbour at this distance?" "Why, sartinly, your honour," answered the man, looking at the Admiral. "Then tell me if you see her," and the Admiral watched him with such an expression of face as he might have looked with at a falling barometer in seas distinguished for cyclones and typhoons.