“No, thank you,” says my lord mighty dryly.

“All right,” said Fitzroy cheerfully.  “Take the other, then, my lord.”

His little lordship cocked his eye like a jackdaw, and looked almost as cunning.  “You see,” said he, “I have been reading up for this voyage.”

“Oh, indeed!  Logarithms?”

“Of course not.”

“What then?”

“Why, ’Peter Simple’—­to be sure.”

“Ah, ha!” said Fitzroy, with a chuckle that showed plainly he had some delicious reminiscences of youthful study in the same quarter.

The little lord chuckled too, and put one finger on Fitzroy’s shoulder, and pointed at the cot with another.  “Tumble out the other side, you know—­slippery hitches—­cords cut—­down you come flop in the middle of the night.”

Fitzroy’s eye flashed merriment:  but only for a moment.  His countenance fell the next.  “Lord bless you,” said he sorrowfully, “all that game is over now.  Her Majesty’s ship!—­it is a church afloat.  The service is going to the devil, as the old fogies say.”

“Ain’t you sorry?” says the little lord, cocking his eye again like the bird hereinbefore mentioned.

“Of course I am.”

“Then I’ll take the standing bed.”

“All right.  I say, you don’t mind the doctor coming down with a run, eh?”

“He is not ill:  I am.  He is paid to take care of me:  I am not paid to take care of him,” said the young lord sententiously.

“I understand,” replied Fitzroy, dryly.  “Well, every one for himself, and Providence for us all—­as the elephant said when he danced among the chickens.”

Here my lord was summoned to dine with the captain.  Staines was not there; but he had not forgotten his duty; in the midst of his grief he had written a note to the captain, hoping that a bereaved husband might not seem to desert his post if he hid for a few hours the sorrow he felt himself unable to control.  Meantime he would be grateful if Captain Hamilton would give orders that Lord Tadcaster should eat no pastry, and drink only six ounces of claret, otherwise he should feel that he was indeed betraying his trust.

The captain was pleased and touched with this letter.  It recalled to him how his mother sobbed when she launched her little middy, swelling with his first cocked hat and dirk.

There was champagne at dinner, and little Tadcaster began to pour out a tumbler.  “Hold on!” said Captain Hamilton; “you are not to drink that;” and he quietly removed the tumbler.  “Bring him six ounces of claret.”

While they were weighing the claret with scientific precision, Tadcaster remonstrated; and, being told it was the doctor’s order, he squeaked out, “Confound him! why did not he stay with his wife?  She is beautiful.”  Nor did he give it up without a struggle.  “Here’s hospitality!” said he.  “Six ounces!”

Receiving no reply, he inquired of the third lieutenant, which was generally considered the greatest authority in a ship—­the captain, or the doctor.