"Do you know the contents of this letter, sir?"
"No, sir."
"I find you are the grandson of my old friend Lord Bellingham—his heir, so Captain Lockyer writes me."
Something like a grin appeared on Archy's handsome face.
"Hardly, sir. My father joined with my grandfather in cutting the entail, and I cannot get the estates; and I cannot use the title, as I am an American citizen."
"A what?" snapped Admiral Kempenfelt.
Now, this young gentleman, Archy Baskerville, had a reprehensible quality very common in youth. He liked to be as exasperating as he dared, and having devoted most of his time on the Seahorse to finding out how far he could presume on his position as a prisoner of war, he only smiled sweetly up into the Admiral's face and repeated, blandly:
"A citizen of the United States, sir."
The Admiral glared at him for a moment, and then, his countenance softening, he put his hand kindly on Archy's shoulder, saying, as if he were addressing a ten-year-old boy:
"Come, come, my lad; let us have no more of that. You are young; you are misguided; you have a splendid destiny before you in England, and the vagaries of a mere lad like you, exposed to the seductions of a plausible fellow like that pirate Jones, will be easily overlooked if you return to your allegiance to your King and country."