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Show time to pay for the (hings. Then, ij acknowledge. 1 was at a loss. The shopman, suddenly changing his tone, cried out to my companion: "Mr. Giles Vernon, I remember the last reefer you brought here bought near a boatload and paid with the foresail, fore-sail, as you gentlemen of the sea call it. I will not be done this time, I assure as-sure you." At this. Giles Vernon promptly drew his Sword, which did not disturb the shopman in the least, as I found out afterward: young gentlemen of Giles' age and rank, in Portsmouth, drew their swords whenever they could not draw their purses. But I was very unhappy, not on Giles' account, but on that of the poor shopman, whom I expected ex-pected to see weltering in his blood. After a wordy war, Giles left the shop, taking me with him, and menacing the shopman, in case the purchases I had ordered did not come aboard the Ajax that night. I thought it wise to suggest that I should now go aboard, as it was well on to three o'clock. Giles agreed with me. . I had forgotten to ask him wliat ship he was attached to, bnt it suddenly sud-denly occurred to me that he. too, might be in the. A.iax, and I asked him. Imagine my delight when he said yes. "But if the admiral does not behave be-have himself better," he added, "and if the captain does not ask me to dinner din-ner oftener than he has been doing lately, I shall prefer charges against both of them. I have been assured by the lord in admiralty that any request re-quest of mine will be regarded as an order by them, and I shall request that Admiral Hawkshaw and Capt. Giul-ford Giul-ford be relieved of their commands." By that time we had reached the water and there, stepping into a splendid, splen-did, eight-oared barge, I saw Sir Peter Hawkshaw. He caught sight of us at the same moment, and the change in Giles Vernon's manner was what might have been expected. He was even more modest and deferential than I, as we advanced. "Here you are!" pleasantly cried the admiral to me. "You ran away so fast t'other day, that I had no chance to give you anjr directions, and I scarcely expected you to turn up to- merable good qualities, but the beggarly beggar-ly virtue of prudence was not among great-uncle. Now understand: Your position in the cockpit is that of this hat. In fact, you will take the hat's place" which 1 found to be true, and I was called to account every day for some part of the conduct of Admiral Hawkshaw. although 1 did not see him twice in the week. .Mr. Buxton, our first lieutenant, was a fine officer, and celebrated for licking lick-ing midshipmen into shape; and if I learned my duty quickly he, rather than I, deserves the credit. My experience of other ships convinces con-vinces me that the juniors in the Ajax were clever fellows: but Giles Ver-them. Ver-them. He had, however, another virtue vir-tue in a high degree a daring and invincible courage. That, and his smartness as an officer, made Mr. Buxton his friend, and caused many of his peccadilloes to be overlooked. The fact that at 19 Giles Vernon was still only a midshipman made nn think that he was without fortune or influence: but I was soon enlightened on the subject, though not by him. He was the distant cousin and heir of Sir Thomas Vernon of Vernon court, near York, and of Grosvenor square, London. Lon-don. This man was generally spoken of as the wicked Sir Thomas, and mortal hatred subsisted between him and his heir. Giles had been caught trying to induce the money sharks to take his postobits; but as Sir Thomas was not yet 50 years of age, and it was quite possible that he should marry, the only result was to fan the flame of animosity between him and his heir, without Giles' getting a shilling. The next heir to Giles w:as another cousin, remote from both him and Sir Thomas, one Capt. Philip Overton of the Guards, who was as much disliked by Sir Thomas as was Giles. Giles, who had been at sea since his twelfth year, knew little or nothing of Capt. Overton, although he swore many times in av month that he meant to marry the first, woman who would take him, for the purpose of cutting off Overton's hopes; but it occurred to me, young as I was, that Giles was not the man to give up his liberty to the first woman who was willing to accept of it. of the LADY ARABELLA By MOLLY ELLIOT SEA WELL (Copyright, 1SC, Bobbs-MorriUCo.) SYNOPSIS. At 14 years of age Admiral Sir Peter Hawkshaw's nephew fell deeply in love at first sight with Lady Arabella Stor-mont, Stor-mont, who spurned his attentions. The lad, an orphan, was given a berth as mid-Rhipman mid-Rhipman on the Ajax hy his uncle. Giles Vernon, nephew of Sir Thomas Vernon, became the boy's pal. CHAPTER I. Continued. Now, the peculiar circumstances of my bringing-up had given me a ridiculous ri-diculous haughtiness for Betty Green had never ceased to implore me to remember re-member my quality so I replied to this off-hand speech in kind. "A ship of the line," said I. "Damme, do you think I'd serve in a gun-brig?" He came up a little closer to me, looked at me attentively, and said: "It's an infant Rodney, sure. Was not Americus Vespucius your grandfather? grand-father? And was not your grandmother grand-mother in love with Noah when he was oakum boy at the Portsmouth docks?" I considered this very offensive, and, We were fitting for the Mediterranean, Mediter-ranean, and the ship lay in the inner harbor at Portsmouth, waiting her turn to go in dry dock to be coppered. There was plenty for the seniors to do, but not much for the midshipmen at that particular time; and we had more runs on shore than usual. The rest of us were satisfied with Portsmouth, Ports-mouth, but Giles was always raving of London and the London playhouses. Knowing how long I had lived in London, he said to me one day: "Were you ever at Drury Late theater, thea-ter, my lad?" I said no, I had never been to the playhouse; and I blushed as I said it, not desiring my messmates to know that I had been brought up by Betty Green, a corporal's widow. "Then, child," he cried, whacking me on the back, "you have yet to live. Have you not seen Mistress Trenchard the divine Sylvia-t-as Roxana, as Lady Percy, as Violetta? Oh, what a galaxy of parts! Oh, the divine creature!" He threw himself across the mess-table mess-table at that, for we were in the cockpit cock-pit at the time. I laughed, boylike, at his raptures, and he groaned loudly. "Such a face and figure! Such a foot and ankle! Such a melting eye! Such a luscious voice!" I own that this outburst did more to make me realize that Giles, after all, was but 19 than anything that had gone before; for I knew that older men did not so rave. "And," he cried, wildly, "I can not see her before we sail. By heaven, I will see her! 'Tis 74 miles between me and her angel face. It can be done in 7 hours and 20 minutes. I can get 24 hours' leave but not a word of this, you haymaking son of a farmer." (TO BE CONTINUED.) Arabella. day. However, I shall now take you to the ship. Mr. Vernon, I have room for you." "Thank you, sir," responded Giles very gratefully, "but I have a pressing engagement cm shore a matter of important im-portant business " at which I saw the suspicion of a grin on the admiral's homely old face. He said little to me until we were in the great cabin of the Ajax. For myself, I can only say that I was so awed by the beauty, the majesty, the splendor of one of the finest ships of the line in the world, that I was dumb with delight and amazement. Once in the cabin, the admiral asked me about my- means and my outfit. I burst out with the whole story of what occurred in the haberdasher's shop, at which Sir Peter looked very solemn, and lectured me upon the recklessness of my conduct in ordering things with no monuy to pay for them, and followed it up with an offer to fit me out handsomely. This I accepted with the utmost gratitude, grati-tude, and in a day or two I found myself my-self established as one of his majesty's midshipmen in the cockpit of the Ajax, and I began to see life. urawing myseu up, saia: "My grandfather was a baronet, and my grand-uncle is Admiral Sir Peter Hawkshaw, whose flagship, as you may know, is the Ajax, 74." "I know him well," responded my new acquaintance. "We were drunk together this night week. He bears for arms Lot's wife after she was turned into a pillar of salt, with this device: 'I thirst; " This was an allusion to the dry-salter. dry-salter. For I soon found that the young gentlemen in the cockpit were intimately acquainted with all of the antecedents, glorious or otherwise, of their superior officers. The lie in the early part of this sentence was patent to me, but so great was the power to charm of this squinting, wide-mouthed fellow, that I felt myself drawn to him irresistibly, and something in my countenance showed It, for he linked his arm through mine and began again: "I know your great-aunt, too, Polly Hawkshaw. Dreadful old girl. I hear she can tack ship as well as the admiral; ad-miral; knows to a shilling what his mess bill is, and teaches him trigonometry trigo-nometry when he is on leave." This was, of course, a vilification, and Lady Hawkshaw's name was not Polly, but Apollonia; but I blush to say I spoke not one word in defense of either her or her name. It occurred to me that my new friend was a person per-son who could give me much information informa-tion about my outfit and uniforms, and I candidly stated my case to him. "Come on," he cried. "There's a rascal of a haberdasher here who lives off his majesty's officers, and I'll take you there and fit you out; for Sir Peter's the man to have his young officers smart. A friend of mine poor fellow! happened to be caught in mufti in the Ajax the other day, and Sir Peter had all hands turned up for an execution. My unhappy friend begged that he might be shot instead of hanged, and Sir Peter, I'll admit, granted him the favor. The poor fellow fel-low tied the handkerchief over his eyes himself, forgave all his enemies, and asked his friends to pay his debts. Zounds, 'twas the most affecting af-fecting scene I ever witnessed." I plainly perceived that my companion com-panion was talking to frighten me, and showed it by thrusting my tongue into my cheek, which caused him to burst out laughing. He presently became grave, however, and assured me solemnly sol-emnly that a sea-officer had his choice of dressing handsomely, or being court-martialed and shot. "For," said he, "the one hundred and forty-fourth regulation of the service reads: 'All of his majesty's sea-officers are commanded com-manded to marry heiresses, and in these cases, the usual penalties for the abduction of heiresses are remitted.' re-mitted.' Now, how can we abduct heiresses, heir-esses, or even get them to look at us, without fine clothes? Women, my boy, are caught by the eye alone and I know 'em, by Gad!" This trifling speech remained in my memory, and the day came when I recalled the idle talk of us two laughing laugh-ing midshipmen as prophetic. We went together to a shop, where, under his direction and that of an oily tongued shopman, I ordered one of the handsomest outfit? any midshipman mid-shipman could possibly have, including includ-ing two dozen of silk stockings, as my new-found friend informed me that every man on board his majesty's ships, from the admiral down to the jack-o'-the-dust. always wore silk stockings, because in the event of being struck by a ball or a pike or a cutlass in action, the danger from inflammation in-flammation was much less with silk than with cotton or wool. All went swimmingly, until it was CHAPTER II. My introduction into the cockpit of the Ajax was pretty much that of every other reefer in his majesty's navy. I was, of course told that I showed the most brazen presumption in daring to wish to enter the naval service; that I ought to be a choir boy at St. Paul's; that haymaking was my profession by nature, to say nothing noth-ing of an exchange of black eyes and bloody noses with every midshipman of my size in the cockpit. Through all this Giles Vernon was my chief tormentor and best friend. He proclaimed pro-claimed the fact of my drysalting ancestry, an-cestry, and when I impudently reminded re-minded him that I was the grandson of a baronet, he gave me one kick for the drysalter and two for the baronet. He showed me a battered old cocked hat hung up on a nail in the steerage country. "Do you see that hat, you young rapscallion?" he asked. 1 replied that I did, and a shocking bad hat it was, too. "That hat was once the property of that old pirate and buccaneer, Sir Peter Hawkshaw, vice-admiral of the White. It is named after him. and whenever his conduct displeases the junior officers of-ficers on this ship which it generally does that hat, dear boy, is kicked and cursed as a proxy for your respected non was undoubtedly the smartest officer of-ficer among them and cock of the walk between decks. He had innu- |