Although there will be frequent occasion to mention this cruiser, the circumstances are of so recent occurrence, that we do not choose to give either her name, or that of any one belonging to her.  We shall, consequently, tell the curious, who may be disposed to turn to their navy-lists and blue-books, that the search will be of no use, as all the names we shall use, in reference to this cruiser, will be fictitious.  As much of the rest of our story as the reader please may be taken for gospel; but we tell him frankly, that we have thought it most expedient to adopt assumed names, in connection with this vessel and all her officers.  There are good reasons for so doing; and, among others, is that of abstaining from arming a clique to calumniate her commander, (who, by the way, like another commander in the Gulf that might be named, and who has actually been exposed to the sort of tracasserie to which there is allusion, is one of the very ablest men in the service,) in order to put another in his place.

The officer who now came over the side of the Swash we shall call Wallace; he was the second lieutenant of the vessel of war.  He was about thirty, and the midshipman who followed him was a well-grown lad of nineteen.  Both had a decided man-of-war look, and both looked a little curiously at the vessel they had boarded.

“Your servant, sir,” said Wallace, touching his cap in reply to Spike’s somewhat awkward bow.  “Your brig is the Molly Swash, Stephen Spike, bound from New York to Key West and a market.”

“You’ve got it all as straight, lieutenant, as if you was a readin’ it from the log.”

“The next thing, sir, is to know of what your cargo is composed?”

“Flour; eight hundred barrels of flour.”

“Flour!  Would you not do better to carry that to Liverpool?  The Mississippi must be almost turned into paste by the quantity of flour it floats to market.”

“Notwithstanding that, lieutenant, I know Uncle Sam’s economy so well, as to believe I shall part with every barrel of my flour to his contractors, at a handsome profit.”

“You read Whig newspapers principally, I rather think, Mr. Spike,” answered Wallace, in his cool, deliberate way, smiling, however, as he spoke.

We may just as well say here, that nature intended this gentleman for a second lieutenant, the very place he filled.  He was a capital second lieutenant, while he would not have earned his rations as first.  So well was he assured of this peculiarity in his moral composition, that he did not wish to be the first lieutenant of anything in which he sailed.  A respectable seaman, a well-read and intelligent man, a capital deck officer, or watch officer, he was too indolent to desire to be anything more, and was as happy as the day was long, in the easy berth he filled.  The first lieutenant had been his messmate as a midshipman, and ranked him but two on the list in his present commission; but he did not envy him in the least.