Smithett was a remarkably handsome man, and the very _beau-idéal_ of a sailor. For many years he was the man always selected to carry any royal or distinguished personage who had to cross the Channel from or to Dover. He was an immense favourite with all the little Ostend world--with the female part of it, of course, especially. I remember his showing me with much laughter an anonymous _billet doux_ which had reached him, beginning, “_O toi qui commandes la Flèche, tu peux aussi commander les cœurs_,” &c., &c. I discovered the writer some time subsequently in an extremely pretty _baigneuse_, the wife, I am sorry to say, of a highly respected Belgian banker. Perhaps all his Ostend admirers did not know that he had a charming wife at Dover. He was all the more an object of our admiration from the singular contrast between him and his colleague, a certain Captain Murch. Between them they did in those days the whole of the Ostend and Dover mail business. Poor Murch was much of an invalid, and, strange as it may seem, suffered invariably on every passage, from year’s end to year’s end, from sea sickness. Think of the purgatory involved in the combination of such a constitution with such a profession! The port of Ostend was at that time somewhat difficult to enter in heavy weather, and bad fogs were very frequent on that coast. Poor Murch was always getting into difficulties which involved “lying to,” and reaching his destination long after time; whereas we held that the dashing _Arrow_ would go wherever the _Flying Dutchman_ could. And indeed I have seen her come in when I could only remain at the pier-head by lashing myself to a post. So much for “_le beau, Capitaine Smitète_.”