Four days of listless waiting go by, and Captain Paul Jones again finds himself and Mr. Morris closeted with General Washington.
“Captain Jones,” says the latter, speaking with a kindly gravity, “Mr. Morris and I have so pushed your affairs with the Marine Committee that to-morrow Congress will pass a double resolution, adopting a new flag, the stars and stripes, and appointing you to command the Ranger.”
“The Ranger!” exclaims Captain Paul Jones, beginning to glow. “Thanks, General; a thousand thanks! And to you also, Mr. Morris, whom I shall never forget! The Ranger! I know her! She is being sparred and rigged at Portsmouth! New, three hundred tons; a beauty, too, they tell me! Gentlemen, I am off at once to Portsmouth! I must see to stepping her masts and mounting her batteries myself.”
Captain Paul Jones, all eagerness, is on his feet, and even the wise, age-cold Mr. Morris begins to catch his fire.
“Right!” cries Mr. Morris; “you shall start to-morrow!”
“Captain Jones,” interrupts the General, laying a large detaining hand on the other’s arm, “you will go to Portsmouth and look after your ship. Also, while your destination is France, you must wait for orders to sail. I may have weighty despatches for the French King—news that will shake Europe.”
June is as cool in Portsmouth as it is in Philadelphia. Cooler; for the New Hampshire breeze has in it the chill smell of those snows that lie unmelted in the mountains. Captain Paul Jones comes unannounced, eyes dancing like those of a child with a new toy, and seeks the wharf where the __Ranger__ is being fitted to her spars. From a convenient coign he looks the Ranger over, and evinces a master’s appreciation.
“Nose sharp! Plenty of dead-rise! Lean lines!” he murmurs. “With the wind anywhere abaft the beam, she should race like a greyhound! All, she’s a beauty, fit to warm the cockles of a sailor’s heart! See to the sheer of her!—as delicate as the lines of a woman’s arm!”
Up comes a sturdy figure with an air of command, an officer’s hat on his head, a ship-carpenter’s adz in his hand.
“This is Captain Jones?”