"You might like to know how old I am," said the captain, with an indescribable look at the girl, "but every man should respect the secret of his birth. Until we come to sixty we like to be thought much younger, and when we come to eighty we tell lies that our friends may think us ninety. I have good reason to congratulate myself upon my birthday. I cannot believe that the Red Ensign ever floated over a better seaman than I, a man who is both a gentleman and a sailor, and it has been my privilege," he continued, talking as though he was making an after-dinner speech, "to have dignified by my behaviour and breeding a service that in public opinion is in want of dignity."
Hardy burst into a laugh; he could not help it, but he instantly apologised by saying that the captain's words made him think of the first skipper he sailed with, betwixt whose legs, as he stood, you could have fitted an oval picture, and whose face for beauty might have been picked out of the harness cask.
The captain with a slight frown cast his eyes upon the mate, and said, "Johnny shall be a sailor. His mother would have desired him to serve the queen at sea, but he shall perpetuate me under the flag I serve."
This was followed by a short silence; the others found nothing to say. It was perhaps one of the saddest illustrations of madness on record, and it set the listeners' hearts pining to do something that was denied to their sympathy and distress.
"The men shall have a holiday," said the captain, who was scarcely eating. "It is my birthday, and they shall drink my health at eight bells. You will drink my health, Mr. Hardy, and you, Miss Armstrong?"
They answered that they would drink his health with the greatest pleasure.
"You and Mr. Candy in rum, Mr. Hardy; you'll drink with the men, for I like the officers of my ship to be associated with the crew on festive occasions."
"I will gladly drink with the men, sir," responded Hardy.
"Rum is not a fit drink for young ladies," continued the captain, with a faint smile, "and you, Miss Armstrong, will drink my health in claret—a wine which shall not hurt you, because 'tis light and old and nourishing."
Julia bowed. Hardy was wondering what the men would think, but if they thought this unusual deviation from sea routine odd, they would certainly like it and hope for more. It was an exhibition of insane generosity, of lunatic kindness, and the mate could see nothing else in it.