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BETWEEN DECKS OF A MAN-OF-WAR, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

“This order being promptly obeyed, amidst a running fire of similar objurgations, the key of the chest was sent for, and shortly afterwards the sound of sawing became audible. It was now high time to follow my property, which, to my astonishment, had been turned out on the deck—Jack superintending the sawing off one end of the chest just beyond the keyhole, and accompanying the operation by sundry uncomplimentary observations on midshipmen in general, and on myself in particular.

“The metamorphosis being completed to the lieutenant’s satisfaction—though not at all to mine, for my neat chest had become an unshapely piece of lumber—he pointed out the ‘lubberliness of shore-going people in not making keyholes where they could most easily be got at,’ viz., at the end of a chest instead of the middle!” Lord Cochrane took it easily, and acknowledges warmly the service Jack Larmour rendered him in teaching him his profession.

Later, Lord Cochrane, when promoted to a lieutenancy, was dining with Admiral Vandepat, and being seated near him, was asked what dish was before him. “Mentioning its nature,” says he, “I asked whether he would permit me to help him. The uncourteous reply was—that whenever he wished for anything he was in the habit of asking for it. Not knowing what to make of a rebuff of this nature, it was met with an inquiry if he would allow me the honour of taking wine with him. ‘I never take wine with any man, my lord,’ was the unexpected reply, from which it struck me that my lot was cast among Goths, if no worse.” Subsequently he found that this apparently gruff old admiral assumed some of this roughness purposely, and that he was one of the kindest commanders living.