“Why, what’s the meaning of this hilarity, Somers?” cried Decatur, observing a smile even on his friend’s usually grave countenance.
“Matter enough,” responded Somers, bursting out into a shout of laughter. “The commodore needed a surgeon’s mate for this ship, so he succeeded in getting a little Sicilian doctor for the place. He was entered on the ship’s books regularly under an acting appointment and ordered to prepare his uniforms and outfit and report on board this afternoon. Well, just now he came aboard, in full regalia, with cocked hat and side arms, but instead of having one epaulet, he has two; and the commodore isn’t the man to permit any equality between himself and a surgeon’s mate. The little fellow has gone below, and—ha! ha!—we are waiting for the explosion.”
There was one of the midshipmen, though, the youngest and smallest of them all, a bright-faced lad of fourteen, who laughed as much as the rest, but who looked undoubtedly a little frightened.
“Mr. Israel, there,” continued Somers, still laughing, “was the officer to whom the doctor applied for instructions about his uniforms, and we are apprehensive that the commodore may call upon Mr. Israel for an explanation.”
“I—I don’t know what I shall do,” faltered the little midshipman, “if old Pep—I mean the commodore—should ask me. I’m sure I’d never have the nerve to own up, and I certainly can’t deny that I did tell the doctor he’d look well in a cocked hat and two epaulets.”
“Never mind, Pickle,” said Macdonough, clapping the boy on the shoulder, “you’re always in mischief anyhow, so a little more or less makes no difference.—Captain Decatur, we in the steerage do our best to reform Mr. Israel, but he has a positive genius for getting into scrapes.”
“Queer thing, that, for a midshipman,” answered Decatur, with a wink. “That was the way with Captain Somers when we were midshipmen together on ‘Old Wagoner.’ If it had not been for my watchful eye and discreet judgment, he would have been in trouble all the time.”
This was so conspicuously to the contrary of the truth, that Somers did not condescend to deny it, merely remarking:
“A likely yarn, that.”
Scarcely were the words out of Somers’s mouth before a wild yell was heard from below. The next moment the unlucky Sicilian dashed out of the cabin, hotly pursued by Commodore Preble himself. The commodore was six feet high, and usually of a grave and saturnine countenance. But there was nothing grave or saturnine about him then. He had been in the act of shaving when the surgeon’s mate with the two epaulets appeared, and he had not taken time to wipe the lather off his face or to take off his dressing-gown, nor was he conscious that he was flourishing a razor in his hand. The Sicilian, seeing the razor, and appalled by the reception he had met with, had taken to his heels; and the commodore, determined to have an explanation, had followed him, bawling: