“Find such a birth, Captain Howard, as suits your inclination,” said the unceremonious old seaman, seating himself as frankly as he invited his companion to imitate his example. “A gentleman of your extraordinary merit must be reluctant to lose time in useless words, though you are so young—young for the pretty command it is your good fortune to enjoy!”
“On the contrary, I do assure you I begin to feel myself quite an antediluvian,” returned the Rover coolly placing himself at the opposite side of the table, where he might, from time to time, look his half-disgusted companion full in the eye: “Would you imagine it, sir? I shall have reached the age of three-and-twenty, if I live through the day.”
“I had given you a few more years, young gentleman; but London can ripen the human face as speedily as the Equator.”
“You never said truer words, sir. Of all cruising grounds, Heaven defend me from that of St. James’s! I do assure you, Bignall, the service is quite sufficient to wear out the strongest constitution. There were moments when I really thought I should have died that humble, disagreeable mortal—a lieutenant!”
“Your disease would then have been a galloping consumption!” muttered the indignant old seaman. “They have sent you out in a pretty boat at last, Captain Howard.”
“She’s bearable, Bignall, but frightfully small. I told my father, that, if the First Lord didn’t speedily regenerate the service, by building more comfortable vessels, the navy would get altogether into vulgar hands. Don’t you find the motion excessively annoying in these single-deck’d ships, Bignall?”
“When a man has been tossing up and down for five-and-forty years, Captain Howard,” returned his host, stroking his gray locks, for want of some other manner of suppressing his ire, “he gets to be indifferent whether his ship pitches a foot more or a foot less.”
“Ah! that, I dare say, is what one calls philosophical equanimity, though little to my humour. But, after this cruise, I am to be posted; and then I shall make interest for a guard-ship in the Thames; every thing goes by interest now-a-days, you know, Big-nail.”
The honest old tar swallowed his displeasure as well as he could; and, as the most effectual means of keeping himself in a condition to do credit to his own hospitality, he hastened to change the subject.
“I hope, among other new fashions, Captain Howard,” he said, “the flag of Old England continues to fly over the Admiralty. You wore the colours of Louis so long this morning, that another half hour might have brought us to loggerheads.”