"I have read your report of the capture of the Ocklockonee and the Escambia, and you have won your spurs, my son.

I did not ask for this promotion, or even suggest it to any one." "Well, I am astonished, confounded, overwhelmed!" exclaimed the young lieutenant, as we are now permitted to call him.

"And the commission is dated back far enough to put me over the heads of not a few others of the same rank." "Perhaps it will please you quite as much when I inform you that the officers you recommended for appointment as masters have been promoted to that rank," added the captain.
"I am even more pleased at their promotion than at my own," replied Christy, opening the other envelope, in which he was addressed as "Lieutenant Christopher Passford." "Ah, ha!" he exclaimed, leaping out of his chair in his excitement, to which he gave way on such an occasion as the present.
"What in the world is the matter with you, Christy ?" demanded his mother, astonished at such an unusual demonstration on the part of her son.
"I am appointed to the command of the Bronx, in place of Lieutenant Blowitt, transferred to the Bellevite!" almost shouted the young officer.

"If I could have selected a position for myself, this is the very one I should have chosen." "I heard you say as much as that when you were appointed to the temporary command of the Bronx, and I shall plead guilty of having inserted a hint where it would do the most good," added Captain Passford.
"I am much obliged to you, father; for I don't object to that kind of influence, though I could have commanded the Bronx just as well as a master, which is the rank of her present temporary commander, Mr.Flint.
I desire to win my own rank, and not get it by influence.

I am ordered to proceed to the Gulf as soon as possible." In three days he obtained passage in a store-ship steamer; and he spent all this time at home, as perhaps he would not have done if Bertha Pembroke had not been there.