Here we were, only fifteen sail in all--that is, of vessels of the line--with the wind at--" "Oh, hang your battle, Lyon, I've heard all that at least seventeen times!" "Well, if ye haave, Sir Frederick," returned Lyon, who was a Scotchman, "it'll be just once a year since ye war' born, leaving out the time ye war' in the nursery.

But we've not come here to enlighten Captain Cuffe in these particulars, so much as in obedience to an order of the rear-admiral's--little Nel., as ye'll be calling him, I suppose, Sir Frederick Dashwood ?" "Nay, it's you old Agamemnons, or old fellows, who gave him that name--" "Ye'll please to excuse me, sir," interrupted Lyon, a little dogmatically--"ye've never heard me call him anything but my lord, since His Majesty, God bless him! was graciously pleased to elevate him to the peerage--nothing but 'my lord,' and the 'rear-admiral'; naval rank being entitled to its privileges even on the throne.

Many a king has been a colonel, and I see no disparagement in one's being an admiral.

Won't ye be thinking, Captain Cuffe, that since my lord is made Duke of Bronte, he is entitled to be called 'Your Grace'-- all the Scottish dukes are so designated, and I see no reason why the rear-admiral should not have his just dues as well as the best of them." "Let him alone for that," said Cuffe, laughing; "Nel.

will look out for himself, as well as for the king.