“‘Look ’ere, my jokers,’ ’e says (I’m givin’ the grist of ’is arguments, remember), ‘Number One says we can’t enlighten this cutter-cuddlin’ Gaulish lootenant on the manners an’ customs o’ the Navy without makin’ the ship a market-garden. There’s a lot in that,’ ’e says, ‘specially if we kept it up lavish, till we reached Ascension. But,’ ’e says, ‘the appearance o’ this strange sail has put a totally new aspect on the game. We can run to just one day’s amusement for our friend, or else what’s the good o’ discipline? An’ then we can turn ’im over to our presumably short-’anded fellow-subject in the small-coal line out yonder. He’ll be pleased,’ says the old man, ‘an’ so will Antonio. M’rover,’ he says to Number One, ‘I’ll lay you a dozen o’ liquorice an’ ink’—it must ha’ been that new tawny port—‘that I’ve got a ship I can trust—for one day,’ ’e says. ‘Wherefore,’ he says, ‘will you have the extreme goodness to reduce speed as requisite for keepin’ a proper distance behind this providential tramp till further orders?’ Now, that’s what I call tattics. “The other manœuvres developed next day, strictly in accordance with the plans as laid down in the wardroom, where they sat long an’ steady. ’Op whispers to me that Antonio was a Number One spy when ’e was in commission, and a French lootenant when ’e was paid off, so I navigated at three ’undred and ninety six revolutions to the galley, never ’avin’ kicked a lootenant up to date. I may as well say that I did not manœuvre against ’im as a Frenchman, because I like Frenchmen, but stric’ly on ’is rank an’ ratin’ in ’is own navy. I inquired after ’is health from Retallick. “‘Don’t ask me,’ ’e says, sneerin’ be’ind his silver spectacles. ‘’E’s promoted to be captain’s second supernumerary servant, to be dressed and addressed as such. If ’e does ’is dooties same as he skinned the spuds, _I_ ain’t for changin’ with the old man.’ “In the balmy dawnin’ it was given out, all among the ’olystones, by our sub-lootenant, who was a three-way-discharge devil, that all orders after eight bells was to be executed in inverse ration to the cube o’ the velocity. ‘The reg’lar routine,’ he says, ‘was arrogated for reasons o’ state an’ policy, an’ any flat-foot who presumed to exhibit surprise, annoyance, or amusement, would be slightly but firmly reproached.’ Then the Gunner mops up a heathenish large detail for some hanky-panky in the magazines, an’ led ’em off along with our Gunnery Jack, which is to say, our Gunnery Lootenant. “That put us on the _viva voce_—particularly when we understood how the owner was navigatin’ abroad in his sword-belt trustin’ us like brothers. We shifts into the dress o’ the day, an’ we musters _an’_ we prays _ong reggle_, an’ we carries on anticipatory to bafflin’ Antonio. “Then our Sergeant of Marines come to me wringin’ his ’ands an’ weepin’. ’E’d been talkin’ to the sub-lootenant, an’ it looked like as if his upper-works were collapsin’.