Dodd and Fullalove came on deck, and
Commodore Collier bestowed the highest compliments
on the "makeshift." Dodd begged him to
transfer them to the real inventor; and
introduced Fullalove.

"Ay," said Collier, "I know you Yankees are
very handy. I lost my rudder at sea once, and
had to ship a makeshift: but it was a curs't
complicated thing; not a patch upon yours, Mr.
Fullalove. Yours is ingenious, and simple. Ship has
been in action, I see: pray how was that, if I may
be so bold?"

"Pirates, commodore," said Sharpe. "We
fell in with a brace of Portuguese devils, latine-
rigged, and carried ten guns apiece, in the Straits
of Gaspar: fought 'em from noon till sundown,
riddled one, and ran down the other, and sunk
her in a moment. That was all your doing,
captain; so don't try to shift it on other people; for
we won't let you."

"If he denies it, I won't believe him," said
Collier: "for he has got it in his eye. Gentlemen,
will you do me the honour to dine with me
to-day on board the flag-ship?"

Dodd and Fullalove accepted. Sharpe declined,
with regret, on the score of duty. And as the
cocked hat went down the side, after saluting
him politely, he could not help thinking to
himself what a difference between a real captain, who
had something to be proud of, and his own
unlicked cub of a skipper, with the manners of a
pilot-boat. He told Robarts the next day.
Robarts said nothing; but his face seemed to
turn greenish; and it embittered his hatred of
Dodd the inoffensive.

It is droll, and sad, but true, that Christendom
is full of men in a hurry to hate. And a fruitful
cause is jealousy. The schoolmen, or rather
certain of the schoolmen—for nothing is much
shallower than to speak of all those disputants as
one school—defined woman, "a featherless biped
vehemently addicted to jealousy." Whether she
is more featherless than the male can be decided
at a trifling expense of time, money, and reason:
you have only to go to court. But as for envy
and jealousy, I think it is pure, unobservant,
antique Cant which has fixed them on the female
character distinctively. As a molehill to a mountain,
is women's jealousy to men's. Agatha may
have a host of virtues and graces, and yet her
female acquaintance will not hate her, provided
she has the moderation to abstain from being
downright pretty. She may sing like an angel,
paint like an angel, talk,—write,—nurse the sick,
—all like an angel, and not rouse the devil in her
fair sisters: so long as she does not dress like an
angel. But, the minds of men being much larger
than women's, yet very little greater, they hang
jealousy on a thousand pegs. When there was
no peg, I have seen them do with a pin.

Captain Robarts took a pin: ran it into his
own heart, and hung that sordid passion on it.

He would get rid of all the Doddites before he
sailed. He insulted Mr. Tickell, so that he left
the service, and entered a mercantile house
ashore: he made several of the best men desert:
and the ship went to sea short of hands. This
threw heavier work on the crew; and led to
many punishments, and a steady current of abuse.
Sharpe became a mere machine, always obeying,
never speaking: Grey was put under arrest for
remonstrating against ungentlemanly language:
and Bayliss, being at bottom of the same breed as
Robarts, fell into his humour, and helped hector
the petty officers and men. The crew, depressed
and irritated, went through their duties pully-
hauly-wise. There was no song under the
forecastle in the first watch, and often no grog on
the mess table at one bell. Dodd never came on
the quarter deck without being reminded he was
only a passenger, and the ship was now under
naval discipline.

"/ was reared in the royal navy, sir," would
Robarts say: "second lieutenant aboard the
Atalanta: that is the school, sir; that is the only
school that breeds seamen." Dodd bore scores of
similar taunts as a Newfoundland puts up with
a terrier in office: he seldom replied, and, when
he did, in a few quiet dignified words that gave
no handle.

Robarts, who bore the name of a lucky captain,
had fair weather all the way to St. Helena.

The guard-ship at this island was the
Salamanca. She had left the Cape a week before the
Agra. Captain Robarts, with his characteristic
good breeding, went to anchor in-shore of Her
Majesty's ship. The wind failed at a critical
moment, and a foul became inevitable: Collier
was on his quarter deck, and saw what would
happen long before Robarts did: he gave the
needful orders, and it was beautiful to see how in
half a minute the frigate's guns were run in, her
ports lowered, her yards toppled on end, and a
spring carried out and hauled on.

The Agra struck abreast her own forechains on
the Salamanca's quarter.

(Pipe.) "Boarders away. Tomahawks! cut
everything that holds!" was heard from the
frigate's quarter deck.

Rush came a boarding party on to the
merchant ship and hacked away without mercy all
her lower rigging that held on to the frigate,
signal halyards and all; others boomed her off
with capstan bars, &c., and in two minutes the
ships were clear. A lieutenant and boat's crew
came for Robarts, and ordered him on board the
Salamanca, and, to make sure of his coming, took
him back with them. He found Commodore
Collier standing stiff as a ramrod on his quarter
deck.

"Are you the master of the Agra?" (His
quick eye had recognised her in a moment.)

"I am, sir."

"Then she was commanded by a seaman: and
is commanded by a lubber. Don't apply for
your papers this week; for you won't get them.
Good morning. Take him away!"

They returned Robarts to his ship; and a
suppressed grin on a score of faces showed him the
clear commanding tones of the commodore had