I produced my box, and handed to him the letter from Lord Hood which was addressed to himself.
He hastily tore open the envelope, and soon ran over the few lines which formed the contents of the letter.
“Can’t do it,” he exclaimed, testily, crumpling up the letter in his hand. “Haven’t a single frigate at my disposal; not even a corvette nor a despatch-boat—nothing, in fact, but my own barge. Sheer impossibility; so there’s an end of it. Why, in the name of all that’s ridiculous, could he not send one of his own frigates, so that these confounded despatches might have gone straight on? Much more sensible than to send them here in a little hooker which is not fit to cross the Bay of Biscay. Why is she not fit, eh? What’s the matter with her?”
“There is nothing the matter with her, sir; nothing whatever,” I replied. “It is only an idea of Lord Hood’s that she is unfit to cross the Bay. She, no doubt, appears to him a mere boat, compared with the ‘Victory,’ but I should have no hesitation whatever about taking her across the Bay, or across the Atlantic itself, for that matter.”
“Ah! Is that the case?” he quickly returned. “Um! um! That is a possible way out of the difficulty. Look here. I’ve a few red-coats in the other room, spending the evening with me; I shall be very glad to have the pleasure of your company for the remainder of the evening, if you will join us, young gentleman. I can give you a bed here; and to-morrow I will go on board this little hooker of yours with you, and see for myself whether or no she seems fit to make the trip to England.”
We accordingly adjourned to the dining-room, where we found some dozen or so of military men seated round the table, discussing their wine and cigars, chatting over the events of the war, and bewailing their own ill-luck in being shut up in Gibraltar instead of sharing in the miseries and glories (?) of the field.
I was introduced by the admiral to his guests as one fresh from the seat of the operations in Corsica, and was welcomed cordially and freely plied with questions of all kinds, to some of which, by-the-bye, I found it rather difficult to reply without exciting a feeling of jealousy in the breasts of the red-coats.
Fortunately, however, the evening passed without the occurrence of any incident of a disagreeable character; and at a late, or, more strictly speaking, at an early, hour next morning I turned in, so thoroughly tired that I felt scarcely able to remain awake until I had undressed.
About 7:30 a knock sounded at my door, and a voice announced—in tones which struck me as being somewhat tremulous with suppressed laughter—“Your shaving-water, sir.” Now, I may as well confess that at this particular period of my life the one subject upon which, above all others, I was most sensitive was shaving. I shaved with the most scrupulous regularity every morning; but it was done furtively, so far, at least as my elders were concerned. In the presence of my fellow-mids, the act was performed openly and with all due ceremony and solemnity—all the mids on board the “Juno” shaved—but I had noticed, upon more than one occasion, that any reference in the hearing of my elders to the punctuality with which I performed this duty was invariably received by them with a silence more eloquent than words, and with an expression of ironical incredulity which could only be adequately atoned for by the shedding of their heart’s blood. Therefore I had ceased to refer to a subject the mention of which was invariably followed by much annoyance, and hence the preternatural sensitiveness which caused me to suspect, rather than to absolutely detect, a quiver of suppressed laughter in the voice of the man who on this morning awoke me with the announcement of “Your shaving-water, sir.”
The temporary irritation arising out of this painful and humiliating suspicion had one good result, however; it effectually awoke me and enabled me to promptly turn out; while, but for it, the late hours of the previous night might otherwise have caused me to doze off again, and so become guilty of the quite unpardonable offence of keeping an admiral waiting.