Why was this?
Will any one deny, that from their living so long in high military life, served by a crowd of menial stewards and cot-boys, and always accustomed to command right and left; will any one deny, I say, that by reason of this, their very noses had become thin, peaked, aquiline, and aristocratically cartilaginous?
Even old Cuticle, the Surgeon, had a Roman nose.
But I never could account how it came to be, that our grey headed First Lieutenant was a little lop-sided; that is, one of his shoulders disproportionately dropped.

And when I observed, that nearly all the First Lieutenants I saw in other men-of-war, besides many Second and Third Lieutenants, were similarly lop-sided, I knew that there must be some general law which induced the phenomenon; and I put myself to studying it out, as an interesting problem.

At last, I came to the conclusion--to which I still adhere--that their so long wearing only one epaulet (for to only one does their rank entitle them) was the infallible clew to this mystery.

And when any one reflects upon so well-known a fact, that many sea Lieutenants grow decrepit from age, without attaining a Captaincy and wearing _two_ epaulets, which would strike the balance between their shoulders, the above reason assigned will not appear unwarrantable..