"He's trying to carry it off," added Pomeroy.
"I say, Smith, what does this lunatic mean?"
"What! Haven't you heard the rumour?" answered Smith.
"'What great ones do the less will prattle of,'" quoted Shirley sotto voce.
"What rumour?" asked Jack, more mystified than ever.
"Well, there may be nothing in it, but for my own part I think it's a shame to promote a raw sub like you over the heads of men like Colonel Beckwith and Captain O'Hare, to say nothing of Pomeroy."
Jack, looking somewhat startled, appealed to Captain O'Hare, who was bubbling with amusement.
"Are they all mad, sir?"
"'S mad's hatters!" replied O'Hare with a chuckle. "'Tis a shame to keep ye in suspense. The fact is, my boy, as you'd have learnt if you'd only kept dacent hours, you've been growing in your sleep. You're like the mushroom that blooms in the dark. You went to bed a second lieutenant and woke up a full-blown one. 'Tis most unusual, this promotion, and bedad, 'tis Peter O'Hare himself that's glad, so he is, and so's all the rest of us."
"Except me," said Pomeroy in a tone of regret; "for as my superior officer I can't punch his head."