"Do you dislike it, Sir Gervaise?—Now to our fancies aboard here, it gives the Achilles a knowing look, and we hope to set a fashion. By carrying the head-sails well forward, we help the ship round in a sea, you know, sir."
"Indeed, I know no such thing, my lord. What you gain after being taken aback, you lose in coming to the wind. If I had a pair of scales suitable to such a purpose, I would have all that hamper you have stayed away yonder over your bows, on the end of such a long lever, weighed, in order that you might learn what a beautiful contrivance you've invented, among you, to make a ship pitch in a head sea. Why, d——e, if I think you'd lie-to, at all, with so much stuff aloft to knock you off to leeward. Come up, every thing, forward; come up every thing, my lord, and bring the mast as near perpendicular as possible. It's a hard matter, I find, to make one of your new-fashioned captains keep things in their places."
"Well, now, Sir Gervaise, I think the Achilles makes as good an appearance as most of the other ships; and as to travelling or working, I do not know that she is either dull or clumsy!"
"She's pretty well, Morganic, considering how many Bond-street ideas you have got among you; but she'll never do in a head sea, with that fore-top-mast threatening your knight-heads. So get the mast up-and-down, again, as soon as convenient, and come and dine with me, without further invitation, the first fine day we have at sea. I'm going to send Parker some brawn; but, I'll feed you on some of Galleygo's turtle-soup, made out of pig's heads."
"Thank'ee, Sir Gervaise; we'll endeavour to straighten the slick, since you will have it so; though, I confess I get tired of seeing every thing to-day, just as we had it yesterday."
"Yes—yes—that's the way with most of these St. James cruisers," continued the vice-admiral, as he rowed away. "They want a fashionable tailor to rig a man-of-war, as they are rigged themselves. There's my old friend and neighbour, Lord Scupperton—he's taken a fancy to yachting, lately, and when his new brig was put into the water, Lady Scupperton made him send for an upholsterer from town to fit out the cabin; and when the blackguard had surveyed the unfortunate craft, as if it were a country box, what does he do but give an opinion, that 'this here edifice, my lord, in my judgment, should be furnished in cottage style,'—the vagabond!"
This story, which was not particularly original, for Sir Gervaise himself had told it at least a dozen times before, put the admiral in a good humour, and he found no more fault with his captains, until he reached the Plantagenet.
"Daly," said the Earl of Morganic to his first lieutenant, an experienced old Irishman of fifty, who still sung a good song and told a good story, and what was a little extraordinary for either of these accomplishments, knew how to take good care of a ship;—"Daly, I suppose we must humour the old gentleman, or he'll be quarantining me, and that I shouldn't particularly like on the eve of a general action; so we'll ease off forward, and set up the strings aft, again. Hang me if I think he could find it out if we didn't, so long as we kept dead in his wake!"
"That wouldn't be a very safe desait for Sir Jarvy, my lord, for he's a wonderful eye for a rope! Were it Admiral Blue, now, I'd engage to cruise in his company for a week, with my mizzen-mast stowed in the hold, and there should be no bother about the novelty, at all; quite likely he'd be hailing us, and ask 'what brig's that?' But none of these tricks will answer with t'other, who misses the whipping off the end of a gasket, as soon as any first luff of us all. And so I'll just go about the business in earnest; get the carpenter up with his plumb-bob, and set every thing as straight up-and-down as the back of a grenadier."
Lord Morganic laughed, as was usual with him when his lieutenant saw fit to be humorous; and then his caprice in changing the staying of his masts, as well as the order which countermanded it, was forgotten.