Ethan and Shamus secured lodgings in the town until such time as the ship would sail. Much trouble was experienced in shipping a crew. The seamen demanded advance money, and the commander was forced to pay it to them out of his own private funds, as Congress sent him none for the purpose. And indeed this was no new thing for this brave and generous officer to do, as Ethan subsequently discovered. The government was already in his debt to the amount of seven thousand dollars; and he had once fitted the brig Providence for sea, paying every copper of the expense. It was in the month of October that the Ranger, everything being ready, finally dropped down the bay and squared away for France. Ethan and Longsword were provided with sleeping quarters with the younger officer of the ship and took their meals in the gun room. Mr. Simpson and Mr. Hall the first and second officers, were grumbling, discontented men, and before John Paul Jones was done with them they gave him much trouble. The third officer, Mr. Wallingford, was a pleasant, good humored young man with a fund of bright stories and much ability as a sailor. From the first, Simpson did all he could to annoy Ethan; he had undertaken to do the same for Longsword, but the first petty act of malice in this direction brought such a long, steady, menacing stare from that grim faced trooper that the thing was not repeated. “Mr. Simpson seems not to like me,” said Ethan, on the second day out, to Mr. Wallingford. “You are apparently a friend to Captain Jones,” said the third lieutenant. “And as a man with half an eye can see, he hates the captain like poison.” “And why?” “Just because he’s the skipper, I suppose,” said Wallingford, with a shrug. “Simpson is one of those men who hate all those who are placed over them. He got his rank by influence, and fancies that the command should have been given him.” “I wouldn’t like to sail under him,” said Ethan. “It is rather a good thing that you don’t belong to the ship,” agreed Wallingford. “He’d make life a burden for you, if you did.” “And not belonging to the ship I have a right to resent insult even from the first lieutenant,” said Ethan Carlyle. “And if Mr. Simpson continues as he has he’ll find that I know how.” Wallingford glanced over the lithe, supple, springy young fellow and realized that these words were no idle vaporings and that the power and will were behind them to make them good. “Perhaps you may have a chance to show what you can do in the fighting way before we reach Nantes,” said the young third lieutenant. “I heard Simpson among the middies at eight bells last night trying to get one of them to thrash you.” Ethan’s eyes flashed and his hands clinched. “I trust he didn’t succeed,” said he. “For the midshipmen of the Ranger struck me as being a rather decent lot.”