"What is your name, sir?"
"Edgar Blagrove, sir."
"I remember the name," the officer said. "I put into Alexandria some ten months ago to get some repairs done, and I remember that your father undertook them." He beckoned to a lad of about the same age as Edgar. "Mr. Wilkinson," he said, "you may take this young gentleman, Mr. Blagrove, down to the cockpit and introduce him to your messmates. He is entered on board the ship as a midshipman by Sir Sidney Smith's orders."
The midshipman took him below without a word. There were two other lads in the cabin.
"Allow me," Edgar's guide said with a theatrical flourish of the hand, "to introduce to you Mr. Blagrove, a fellow midshipman and messmate."
"Really, Wilkinson, one never knows whether you are in earnest or playing the fool," growled one of the others, who was a master's mate some nineteen years old.
"On the present occasion I am in earnest, Mr. Condor," Wilkinson replied.
"Where did he spring from?"
"He has just come on board from that little brig that we made lie to just now."
"I come from Alexandria," Edgar said quietly.