“Roddy, lad,” said he, after supper was over, “you’re getting a man now, and I suppose you will go afloat like the rest of us.  You’re old enough to strap a dirk to your thigh.”

“And leave me without a child as well as without a husband!” cried my mother.

“Well, there’s time enough yet,” said he, “for they are more inclined to empty berths than to fill them, now that peace has come.  But I’ve never tried what all this schooling has done for you, Rodney.  You have had a great deal more than ever I had, but I dare say I can make shift to test it.  Have you learned history?”

“Yes, father,” said I, with some confidence.

“Then how many sail of the line were at the Battle of Camperdown?”

He shook his head gravely when he found that I could not answer him.

“Why, there are men in the fleet who never had any schooling at all who could tell you that we had seven 74’s, seven 64’s, and two 50- gun ships in the action.  There’s a picture on the wall of the chase of the Ca Ira.  Which were the ships that laid her aboard?”

Again I had to confess that he had beaten me.

“Well, your dad can teach you something in history yet,” he cried, looking in triumph at my mother.  “Have you learned geography?”

“Yes, father,” said I, though with less confidence than before.

“Well, how far is it from Port Mahon to Algeciras?”

I could only shake my head.

“If Ushant lay three leagues upon your starboard quarter, what would be your nearest English port?”

Again I had to give it up.

“Well, I don’t see that your geography is much better than your history,” said he.  “You’d never get your certificate at this rate.  Can you do addition?  Well, then, let us see if you can tot up my prize-money.”

He shot a mischievous glance at my mother as he spoke, and she laid down her knitting on her lap and looked very earnestly at him.

“You never asked me about that, Mary,” said he.

“The Mediterranean is not the station for it, Anson.  I have heard you say that it is the Atlantic for prize-money, and the Mediterranean for honour.”

“I had a share of both last cruise, which comes from changing a line-of-battleship for a frigate.  Now, Rodney, there are two pounds in every hundred due to me when the prize-courts have done with them.  When we were watching Massena, off Genoa, we got a matter of seventy schooners, brigs, and tartans, with wine, food, and powder.  Lord Keith will want his finger in the pie, but that’s for the Courts to settle.  Put them at four pounds apiece to me, and what will the seventy bring?”

“Two hundred and eighty pounds,” I answered.

“Why, Anson, it is a fortune!” cried my mother, clapping her hands.

“Try you again, Roddy!” said he, shaking his pipe at me.  “There was the Xebec frigate out of Barcelona with twenty thousand Spanish dollars aboard, which make four thousand of our pounds.  Her hull should be worth another thousand.  What’s my share of that?”