“Why, as for the matter of the _prospective_, sir,” replied the veteran, “that’s just what his present Majesty, God bless him! obsarved when he came to look at it; and for the colour, says the king, says he, ‘why the painter must have thought he’d been cooking, for he’s shoved the Victory into the hottest of the fire and done her brown;’ it was too bad, your honour, to singe her in that ’ere fashion, like a _goose_. Mayhap, your honour arn’t seen them there paintings of the battle at a place they call Exeter Hall, in the Strand. Now they are some-ut ship-shape, and the _heat_ of the engagement _warms_ a fellow’s heart to look at. An ould tar of the name of Huggins painted ’em, and I’m sure it’s right enough, for he’s made the Victory _hugging_ the enemy just as a bear would a baby. I could stand and look at them pictures for hours, till I fancied myself once more in the midst of it, measuring out fathoms of smoke and giving ’em full weight of metal. The Victory has just fell aboard the French Redhotable and the Golision, as they calls it, gives each of ’em a _lust_ different ways that looked so natural-like, that I felt myself getting a heel to port in the ould Victory as I looked at her. Then there’s the gale o’wind arter the battle; why, blow my ould wig, but you may feel the breeze and shake yourself from the spray. God bless his Majesty!--for they are the king’s, your honour;--long may he live to view ’em, and long may Huggins _hug_ to windward under royal favour! I went to see him,--not the king, your honour, but Muster Huggins, and when he found I was ‘the Old Sailor,’ what gave some account of the life of a man-of-war’s man in ‘Greenwich Hospital,’ he whips out his old quid, flings it into the fire, and we sported a fresh bit o’bacca on the strength of it.--That was a welcome worthy a great man, and he could’nt ha’ done more for the king, though I arn’t quite sure that his Majesty does chaw his pig-tail.” There certainly was ample scope for the remarks of my old friend, and I could not but consider the picture a complete failure. “And so you were at Trafalgar,” said I.