"It's too bad; all the fellows were counting on your coming." And Midshipman Raymond left the quarter-deck, and strolled forward to the mast, where five or six other middies were waiting, all dressed in their best uniforms, with rows of polished brass buttons, and neat little dirks swung at their left hips by slender chains. They were impatient at the delay. Every one wished to be ashore, as it was the intention to dine together and afterwards to attend a concert at the Malta Theatre; for the Constitution was lying at anchor just off the town, and not far from the walls of the heavy fortifications that make the island England's greatest stronghold in the Eastern Mediterranean—second in importance among her possessions only to the impregnable Gibraltar.
"I hear Carlotti is going to sing to-night," observed one of the midshipmen knowingly, interrupting the chorus of grumblings at the slowness of the shore boat in returning. "She's great," he added.
"How do you know?" asked a short tow-headed reefer; "you never heard her."
"No, but Bainbridge has, and he told me."
"Wish Bainbridge was going with us——"
"So do we all," was the chorus to this, and just at this moment the ship's bell clanged the hour, and the one to whom they referred ran past them. He paused at the head of the ladder.
"I'll be up in a minute; don't you fellows go without me."
With these words he jumped below, and running into the steerage, he slammed open the lid of his chest and shifted into his best uniform in "presto change" fashion. He was just in time to hasten down the ladder and leap into the boat as she shoved off from the side. There were two lieutenants going ashore, and they don't wait for tardy midshipmen.
"Quick work, Joseph," said Middy Raymond, laying his hand on Bainbridge's knee.
"Rather," was the panted reply. "Do I look shipshape? Feels as if I'd forgotten something."