I had not been long at Halifax, before a sudden change took place in the behaviour of my captain towards me.  The cause I could never exactly discover, though I had given myself some room for conjecture.  I must confess, with sorrow, that notwithstanding his kindness to me on every occasion, and notwithstanding my high respect for him, as an officer and a gentleman, I had raised a laugh against him.  But he was too good-humoured a man to be offended at such a harmless act of youthful levity; and five minutes were usually the limits of anger with this amiable man, on such occasions as I am about to relate.

The fact was this; my truly noble captain sported a remarkable wide pair of blue trowsers.  Whether he thought it sailor-like, or whether his tailor was afraid of putting his lordship to short allowance of cloth, for fear of phlogistic consequences, I know not; but broad as was the beam of his lordship, still broader and more ample in proportion were the folds of this essential part of his drapery, quite enough to have embraced twice the volume of human flesh contained within them, large as it undoubtedly was.

That “a stitch in time saves nine,” is a wise saw; unhappily, like many others of the same thrifty kind, but little heeded in this our day.  So it was with Lord Edward.  A rent had, by some mischance been made in the central seam, and, on the morning of the hurricane, was still unmended.  When the gale came, it sought a quarrel with any thing it could lay hold of, and the harmless trowsers of Lord Edward became subject to its mighty and resistless devastation; the blustering Boreas entered by the seam aforesaid, and filled the trowsers like the cheeks of a trumpeter.  Yorkshire wool could not stand the inflated pressure—­the dress split to ribbons, and soundly flagellated the very part it was intended to conceal.  What could he do, “in sweet confusion lost and dubious flutterings”—­the only defence left against the rude blast, was his shirt (for the weather was so warm that second garments were dispensed with), and this too being old, fled in tatters before the gale.  In short, clap a sailor’s jacket on the Gladiator in Hyde-park, and you have a fair view of Lord Edward in the hurricane.

The case was inconvenient enough; but as the ship was in distress, and we all expected to go to the bottom in half an hour, it was not worth while to quit the deck to replace the dress, which would have availed him nothing in the depths of the sea, particularly as we were not likely to meet with any ladies there; nor if there had been any, was it a matter of any moment whether we went to Davy’s Locker with or without breeches; but when the danger was passed, the joke began to appear, and I was amusing a large company with the tale when his lordship came in.  The titter of the ladies increased to a giggle, and then, by regular gradation, to a loud and uncontrollable laugh.  He very soon discovered that he was the