The Amateur Gentleman

"Eh, sir!" he exclaimed, with his hand outstretched in greeting,

"are ye blind, I say are ye blind and deaf? Didn't you hear her

Grace hailing you? Didn't ye see me signal you to 'bring to'?"

"No, sir," answered Barnabas, grasping the proffered hand.

"Oho!" said the Captain, surveying Barnabas from head to foot,

"so you've got 'em on, I see, and vastly different you look in your

fine feathers. But you can sink me,--I say you can scuttle and sink

me if I don't prefer you in your homespun! You'll be spelling your

name with as many unnecessary letters, and twirls, and flourishes as

you can clap in, nowadays, I'll warrant."

"Jack Chumly, don't bully the boy!" said a voice near by; and

looking thitherward, Barnabas beheld the Duchess seated at a small

table beneath a shady tree, and further screened by a tall hedge; a

secluded corner, far removed from the throng, albeit a most

excellent place for purposes of observation, commanding as it did a

wide view of lawns and terraces. "As for you, Mr. Beverley,"

continued the Duchess, with her most imperious air, "you may bring a

seat--here, beside me,--and help the Captain to amuse me."

"Madam," said Barnabas, his bow very solemn and very deep, "I am

about to leave, and--with your permission--I--"

"You have my permission to--sit here beside me, sir. So! A dish of

tea? No? Ah, well--we were just talking of you; the Captain was

describing how he first met you--"

"Bowing to a gate-post, mam,--on my word as a sailor and a Christian,

it was a gate-post,--I say, an accurs--a confoundedly rotten old

stick of a gate-post."

"I remember," sighed Barnabas.

"And to-day, sir," continued the Captain, "to-day you must come

clambering over a gentleman's garden wall to bow and scrape to a--"

"Don't dare to say--another stick, Jack Chumly!" cried the Duchess.

"I repeat, sir, you must come trespassing here, to bow--I say bah!

and scrape--"

"I say tush!" interpolated the Duchess demurely.

"To an old--"

"Painted!" suggested the Duchess.

"Hum!" said the Captain, a little hipped, "I say--ha!--lady, sir--"

"With a wig!" added the Duchess.

"And with a young and handsome,--I say a handsome and roguish pair

of eyes, sir, that need no artificial aids, mam, nor ever will!"

"Three!" cried the Duchess, clapping her hands. "Oh, Jack! Jack

Chumly! you, like myself, improve with age! As a midshipman you were

too callow, as a lieutenant much too old and serious, but now that

you are a battered and wrinkled young captain, you can pay as pretty

a compliment as any other gallant youth. Actually three in one hour,

Mr. Beverley."

"Compliments, mam!" snorted the Captain, with an angry flap of his

empty sleeve, "Compliments, I scorn 'em! I say pish, mam,--I say bah!

I speak only the truth, mam, as well you know."