“The boat ’adn’t more than shoved off before a change, as you might say, came o’er the spirit of our dream. The old man says, like Elphinstone an’ Bruce in the Portsmouth election when I was a boy: ‘Gentlemen,’ he says, ‘for gentlemen you have shown yourselves to be—from the bottom of my heart I thank you. The status an’ position of our late lamented shipmate made it obligato,’ ’e says, ‘to take certain steps not strictly included in the regulations. An’ nobly,’ says ’e, ‘have you assisted me. Now,’ ’e says, ‘you hold the false and felonious reputation of bein’ the smartest ship in the Service. Pigsties,’ ’e says, ‘is plane trigonometry alongside our present disgustin’ state. Efface the effects of this indecent orgy,’ he says. ‘Jump, you lop-eared, flat-footed, butter-backed Amalekites! Dig out, you briny-eyed beggars!’” “Do captains talk like that in the Navy, Mr. Pyecroft?” I asked. “I’ve told you once I only give the grist of his arguments. The Bosun’s mate translates it to the lower deck, as you may put it, and the lower deck springs smartly to attention. It took us half the night ’fore we got ’er anyway ship-shape; but by sunrise she was beautiful as ever, and we resoomed. I’ve thought it over a lot since; yes, an’ I’ve thought a lot of Antonio trimmin’ coal in that tramp’s bunkers. ’E must ’ave been highly surprised. Wasn’t he?” “He was, Mr. Pyecroft,” I responded. “But now we’re talking of it, weren’t you all a little surprised?” “It come as a pleasant relief to the regular routine,” said Mr. Pyecroft. “We appreciated it as an easy way o’ workin’ for your country. But—the old man was right—a week o’ similar manœuvres would ’ave knocked our moral double-bottoms bung out. Now, couldn’t you oblige with Antonio’s account of Glass’s execution?” I obliged for nearly ten minutes. It was at best but a feeble rendering of M. de C.’s magnificent prose, through which the soul of the poet, the eye of the mariner, and the heart of the patriot bore magnificent accord. His account of his descent from the side of the “_infamous vessel consecrated to blood_” in the “_vast and gathering dusk of the trembling ocean_” could only be matched by his description of the dishonoured hammock sinking unnoticed through the depths, while, above, the bugler played music “_of an indefinable brutality_” “By the way, what did the bugler play after Glass’s funeral?” I asked. “Him? Oh! ’e played ‘The Strict Q.T.’ It’s a very old song. We ’ad it in Fratton nearly fifteen years back,” said Mr. Pyecroft sleepily. I stirred the sugar dregs in my glass. Suddenly entered armed men, wet and discourteous, Tom Wessels smiling nervously in the background. “Where is that—minutely particularised person—Glass?” said the sergeant of the picket. “’Ere!” The marine rose to the strictest of attentions. “An’ it’s no good smelling of my breath, because I’m strictly an’ ruinously sober.” “Oh! An’ what may you have been doin’ with yourself?”