"Now, Sir Jarvy, since you're veering out your Latin, I should likes to know if you can tell a 'clove-hitch' from a 'carrick-bend?'"
"That is an extraordinary question, Galleygo, to put to an old seaman!"
"Well, if you remembers that, why can't you just as reasonably remember your old friend, Admiral Blue?"
"Admiral of the blue! I do recollect many admirals of the blue. They ought to make me an admiral of the blue, duke; I've been a rear-admiral long enough."
"You've been an admiral of the blue once; and that's enough for any man," interrupted Galleygo, again in his positive manner; "and it isn't five minutes since you know'd your own rank as well as the Secretary to the Admiralty himself. He veers and hauls, in this fashion, on an idee, gentlemen, until he doesn't know one end of it from t'other."
"This is not uncommon with men of great age," observed the duke. "They sometimes remember the things of their youth, while the whole of later life is a blank. I have remarked this with our venerable friend, in whose mind I think it will not be difficult, however, to revive the recollection of Admiral Bluewater, and even of yourself, Sir Wycherly. Let me make the effort, Galleygo."
"Yes, Lord Geoffrey," for so the steward always called the quondam reefer, "you does handle him more like a quick-working boat, than any on us; and so I'll take an hopportunity of just overhauling our old lieutenant's young 'uns, and of seeing what sort of craft he has set afloat for the next generation."
"Sir Gervaise," said the Duke, leaning over the chair, "here is Sir Wycherly Wychecombe, who once served a short time with us as a lieutenant; it was when you were in the Plantagenet. You remember the Plantagenet, I trust, my dear sir?"
"The Plantagenets? Certainly, duke; I read all about them when a boy. Edwards, and Henrys, and Richards—" at the last name he stopped; the muscles of his face twitched; memory had touched a sensitive chord. But it was too faintly, to produce more than a pause.
"There, now," growled Galleygo, in Agnes' face, he being just then employed in surveying her through a pair of silver spectacles that were a present from his master, "you see, he has forgotten the old Planter; and the next thing, he'll forget to eat his dinner. It's wicked, Sir Jarvy, to forget such a ship."