“Just as you please, youngster,” replied he.  “Recollect, you have told me I am no gentleman.”

He wrapped his plaid around him and said no more, and I was not a little pleased at having silenced him by my resolute behaviour.

I stayed at the Blue Posts, where all the midshipmen put up, that night, and next morning presented myself at the George Inn with my letter of introduction to Captain Savage.

“Mr. Simple, I am glad to see you,” said a voice.  And there sat, with his uniform and epaulets, and his sword by his side, the passenger in the plaid cloak who wanted to open my letter and whom I had told to his face that he was “no gentleman!”

I thought I should have died, and was just sinking down upon my knees to beg for mercy, when the captain, perceiving my confusion, burst out into a laugh, and said, “So you know me again, Mr. Simple?  Well, don’t be alarmed.  You did your duty in not permitting me to open the letter, supposing me, as you did, to be some other person, and you were perfectly right, under that supposition, to tell me that I was not a gentleman.  I give you credit for your conduct.  Now, I think the sooner you go on board the better.”

On my arrival on board, the first lieutenant, after looking at me closely, said, “Now, Mr. Simple, I have looked attentively at your face, and I see at once that you are very clever, and if you do not prove so in a very short time, why—­you had better jump overboard, that’s all.”

I was very much terrified at this speech, but at the same time I was pleased to hear that he thought me clever.  My unexpected reputation was shortly afterwards strengthened, when, noticing the first lieutenant in consultation with the gunner, the former, on my approaching, said, “Youngster hand me that monkey’s tail.”

I saw nothing like a monkey’s tail, but I was so frightened that I snatched up the first thing that I saw, which was a short bar of iron, and it so happened that it was the very article which he wanted.

“So you know what a monkey’s tail is already, do you?” said the first lieutenant.  “Now don’t you ever sham stupid after that.”

A fortnight later, at daylight, a signal from the flagship in harbour was made for us to unmoor; our orders had come to cruise in the Bay of Biscay.  The captain came on board, the anchor weighed, and we ran through the Needles with a fine breeze.  Presently I felt so very ill that I went down below.  What occurred for the next six days I cannot tell.  I thought I should die every moment, and lay in my hammock, incapable of eating, drinking, or walking about.