"You are expected, sir, in a stovepipe hat and a claw-hammer coat!" "Then I can't come." "Dash it! come in what you have on; that is what we mean." "Aye, aye, sir!" The _Collingwood's_ cheer was good, and had I worn a silk hat as high as the moon I could not have had a better time or been made more at home.
An Englishman, even on his great battle-ship, unbends when the stranger passes his gangway, and when he says "at home" he means it.
That one should like Gibraltar would go without saying.

How could one help loving so hospitable a place?
Vegetables twice a week and milk every morning came from the palatial grounds of the admiralty.
"_Spray_ ahoy!" would hail the admiral.

"_Spray_ ahoy!" "Hello!" "To-morrow is your vegetable day, sir." "Aye, aye, sir!" I rambled much about the old city, and a gunner piloted me through the galleries of the rock as far as a stranger is permitted to go.

There is no excavation in the world, for military purposes, at all approaching these of Gibraltar in conception or execution.

Viewing the stupendous works, it became hard to realize that one was within the Gibraltar of his little old Morse geography.
Before sailing I was invited on a picnic with the governor, the officers of the garrison, and the commanders of the war-ships at the station; and a royal affair it was.