“Commodore Preble, may I go with Captain Somers on the Intrepid to-night?”
“Old Pepper,” coolly surveying Pickle, who was rather small for his fourteen years, and reprobating the little midshipman’s assurance, sternly inquired:
“What did I understand you to say, sir?”
The Commodore’s tone and countenance were altogether too much for Pickle’s self-possession. He stammered and blushed, and finally, in a quavering voice, managed to get out—
“If—if—you please, sir—m-may I go——” and then came to a dead halt, while Decatur could not help smiling at him slyly behind the commodore’s back.
“May you go aloft and stay there for a watch?” snapped “Old Pepper,” who suspected very shrewdly what Pickle was trying to ask. “Am I to understand that is what you are after?”
“No, sir,” answered Pickle, plucking up his courage and putting on a defiant air as he caught sight of Decatur’s smile; while Danny Dixon, who had been sent on a message and had come back to report, stood grinning broadly at the little midshipman—“No, sir,” repeated Pickle, with still more boldness. “I came to ask if I might go on the Intrepid, with Captain Somers, to-night.”
“Has Captain Somers asked for your services, Mr. Israel?” inquired the commodore blandly.
“N—no, sir,” faltered Pickle, turning very red, and unconsciously beginning to practice the goose step in his embarrassment.
“Very well, sir,” replied the commodore, still excessively polite, “until Captain Somers asks for an officer of your age and experience, I shall not request him to take you or any other midshipman in the squadron.”