Sir Wycherly now pressed his new acquaintance to join his guests, with so much heartiness, that there was no such thing as refusing.
"Since you and Sir Gervaise both insist on it so earnestly, Sir Wycherly," returned the rear-admiral, "I must consent; but as it is contrary to our practice, when on foreign service--and I call this roadstead a foreign station, as to any thing we know about it--as it is contrary to our practice for both flag-officers to sleep out of the fleet, I shall claim the privilege to be allowed to go off to my ship before midnight.

I think the weather looks settled, Sir Gervaise, and we may trust that many hours, without apprehension." "Pooh--pooh--Bluewater, you are always fancying the ships in a gale, and clawing off a lee-shore.

Put your heart at rest, and let us go and take a comfortable dinner with Sir Wycherly, who has a London paper, I dare to say, that may let us into some of the secrets of state.

Are there any tidings from our people in Flanders ?" "Things remain pretty much as they have been," returned Sir Wycherly, "since that last terrible affair, in which the Duke got the better of the French at--I never can remember an outlandish name; but it sounds something like a Christian baptism.

If my poor brother, St.James, were living, now, he could tell us all about it." "Christian baptism! That's an odd allusion for a field of battle.