I should not wonder if you had your orders to-morrow:
but you cannot sail with this wind, if you are to cruise
to the westward; and Captain Walsh thinks you will certainly
have a cruise to the westward, with the Elephant.
By G--, I wish you may! But old Scholey was saying,
just now, that he thought you would be sent first to
the Texel. Well, well, we are ready, whatever happens.
But by G--, you lost a fine sight by not being here
in the morning to see the Thrush go out of harbour!
I would not have been out of the way for a thousand pounds.
Old Scholey ran in at breakfast-time, to say she had
slipped her moorings and was coming out, I jumped up,
and made but two steps to the platform. If ever there
was a perfect beauty afloat, she is one; and there she lays
at Spithead, and anybody in England would take her for an
eight-and-twenty. I was upon the platform two hours this
afternoon looking at her. She lays close to the Endymion,
between her and the Cleopatra, just to the eastward of the
sheer hulk."
"Ha!" cried William, "_that's_ just where I should have
put her myself.
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