“I don’t like your plot, sir,” bawls out in a stentorian voice an elderly gentleman; “I don’t like your plot, sir,” repeated he with an air of authority, which he had long assumed, from supposing because people would not be at the trouble of contradicting his opinions, that they were incontrovertible—­“there is nothing but death.”

“Death, my dear sir,” replied I, as if I was hailing the lookout man at the mast-head, and hoping to soften him with my intentional bull; “is not death, sir, a true picture of human life?”

“Ay, ay,” growled he, either not hearing or not taking; “it’s all very well, but—­there’s too much killing in it.”

“In a novel, sir, killing’s no murder, you surely will admit; and you must also allow something for professional feeling—­’’tis my occupation;’ and after five-and-twenty years of constant practice, whether I wield the sword or the pen, the force of habit——­”

“It won’t do, sir,” interrupted he; “the public don’t like it.  Otherwise,” continued this hypercritic, softening a little, “some of the chapters are amusing, and, on the whole, it may be said to be rather—­that is—­not unpleasantly written.”

“I like your first and third volume, but not your second,” squeaked out something intended to have been a woman, with shoulder-blades and collar-bones, as De Ville would say, most strongly developed.

“Well now, I don’t exactly agree with you, my dear Miss Peego; I think the second and third volumes are by far the most readable” exclaimed another thing, perched upon a chair, with her feet dangling half way between her seat and the carpet.

“If I might presume upon my long standing in the service, Captain——­,” said a pompous general officer, whose back appeared to have been fished with the kitchen poker—­“if I might venture to offer you advice,” continued he, leading me paternally by the arm a little on one side, “it would be not again to attempt a defence of smuggling:  I consider, sir, that as an officer in his Majesty’s service, you have strangely committed yourself.”

“It is not my defence, sir:  they are the arguments of a smuggler.”

“You wrote the book, sir,” replied he, sharply; “I can assure you that I should not be surprised if the Admiralty took notice of it.”

“Indeed, sir!” replied I, with assumed alarm.

I received no answer, except a most significant nod of the head, as he walked away.

But I have not yet arrived at the climax, which made me inclined to exclaim, with the expiring Lion in the fable——­

A midshipman—­yes, reader, a midshipman—­who had formerly belonged to my ship and had trembled at my frown, ranged up alongside of me, and, with a supercilious air, observed—­

“I have read your book, and—­there are one or two good things in it.”

Hear this, admirals and captains on half-pay! hear this, port-admirals and captains afloat!  I have often heard that the service was deteriorating, going to the devil, but I never became a convert to the opinion before.