like the hand of Providence,” as his whaling brethren expressed it; wrist-bands and sleeves pushed back half way to the elbow, out of respect for the warm weather, and exposing hairy arms, gaudy with red and blue anchors, ships, and goddesses of liberty tattooed in India ink.  But these details were only secondary matters—­his face was the lodestone that chained the eye.  It was a sultry disk, glowing determinedly out through a weather beaten mask of mahogany, and studded with warts, seamed with scars, “blazed” all over with unfailing fresh slips of the razor; and with cheery eyes, under shaggy brows, contemplating the world from over the back of a gnarled crag of a nose that loomed vast and lonely out of the undulating immensity that spread away from its foundations.  At his heels frisked the darling of his bachelor estate, his terrier “Fan,” a creature no larger than a squirrel.  The main part of his daily life was occupied in looking after “Fan,” in a motherly way, and doctoring her for a hundred ailments which existed only in his imagination.

The Admiral seldom read newspapers; and when he did he never believed anything they said.  He read nothing, and believed in nothing, but “The Old Guard,” a secession periodical published in New York.  He carried a dozen copies of it with him, always, and referred to them for all required information.  If it was not there, he supplied it himself, out of a bountiful fancy, inventing history, names, dates, and every thing else necessary to make his point good in an argument.  Consequently he was a formidable antagonist in a dispute.  Whenever he swung clear of the record and began to create history, the enemy was helpless and had to surrender.  Indeed, the enemy could not keep from betraying some little spark of indignation at his manufactured history—­and when it came to indignation, that was the Admiral’s very “best hold.”  He was always ready for a political argument, and if nobody started one he would do it himself.  With his third retort his temper would begin to rise, and within five minutes he would be blowing a gale, and within fifteen his smoking-room audience would be utterly stormed away and the old man left solitary and alone, banging the table with his fist, kicking the chairs, and roaring a hurricane of profanity.  It got so, after a while, that whenever the Admiral approached, with politics in his eye, the passengers would drop out with quiet accord, afraid to meet him; and he would camp on a deserted field.

But he found his match at last, and before a full company.  At one time or another, everybody had entered the lists against him and been routed, except the quiet passenger Williams.  He had never been able to get an expression of opinion out of him on politics.  But now, just as the Admiral drew near the door and the company were about to slip out, Williams said: 

“Admiral, are you certain about that circumstance concerning the clergymen you mentioned the other day?”—­referring to a piece of the Admiral’s manufactured history.