His lordship hinted that he had much to say to the captain in confidence, having just come from the fleet of Vice Admiral Berkeley.  Over their wine, he informed the captain that he was on intimate terms with the vice admiral and that the captain of the Xenophon was down for an early promotion.  Captain Conkerall was delighted.  He drank deep to the health of Vice Admiral Berkeley, Lord Kildee and himself.  By this time, the captain was ready to drink to the health of anybody.  The Lord Kildee, strange to say, imbibed very little, and soon the captain was insensible on the floor, while his lordship was as sober as a judge.

“Faith, it’s a dacint bit of work,” he said, eyeing the prostrate captain.  “Now to the rest of the plan.”

Lord Kildee was none other than the rollicking Irish student Terrence Malone.  In a few moments, he had divested the captain of his coat, trousers and vest, which, with his chapeau, he rolled up in a neat bundle and hurried away to his friend Fernando Stevens.  The hour was late, and Fernando had almost given up going to the ball, when Terrence bolted into his room, his cheeks aglow with excitement.

“Here, me lad, don the royal robes at once.  Begorra, it’s noblemen we are goin’ to be to-night!”

“What does this mean, Terrence?” Fernando asked, as Malone unrolled the bundle containing the elegant uniform of a British officer.

“Divil a question need ye be askin’; put on the uniform; it will fit ye to an exactness.”

In vain Fernando expostulated; his friend forced him into compliance, and, almost before he knew it, he was encased in a British uniform, and a handsome looking officer he made.  Terrence then gave him a drink at his bottle to “steady his nerves,” and told him that it was one of the “divil’s own toimes” they would have.

Fernando, despite all his staid qualities and Puritanic instincts, loved an adventure which promised fun, and finally entered into the scheme with a zest second only to his friend.  The very idea of playing a prank on the captain of a man-of-war was enough to induce him to engage in almost any enterprise.  They managed to escape the house without being detected by Sukey, who was puzzling his brain over deep questions in philosophy, and hastened down the street to a carriage which Terrence engaged to take them to the mayor’s.

There was a ticket of admission in the captain’s vest, which Fernando used, and Lord Kildee had one for himself.

As Terrence contemplated his young friend, whom the uniform fitted as neatly as if he had grown in it, he declared that he was perfection.

Arrived at the door, Fernando, whose brain was in a whirl, found himself suddenly hurried up a flight of marble steps to the great vestibule where there was a flood of subdued light.  The wine made him bold, reckless, and when he was introduced as Lieutenant Smither, of his majesty’s vice admiral’s flag-ship, he half believed he was that person and, assuming what he supposed to be the manner and carriage of so high an official, received the bows and smiles of the fair ladies assembled with the grace of a veteran seaman.