tales of which the other was the hero or the victim, "inside"
stories of great occasions, ceremonies, bombardments, unrecorded
"shirt-sleeve" diplomacy.

Hardy had helped to open the Suez Canal. Marshall had assisted the
Queen of Madagascar to escape from the French invaders. On the
Barbary Coast Hardy had chased pirates. In Edinburgh Marshall had
played chess with Carlyle. He had seen Paris in mourning in the
days of the siege, Paris in terror in the days of the Commune; he
had known Garibaldi, Gambetta, the younger Dumas, the creator of
Pickwick.

"Do you remember that time in Tangier," the admiral urged, when I
was a midshipman, and got into the bashaw's harem?"

"Do you remember how I got you out? Marshall replied grimly.

"And," demanded Hardy, "do you remember when Adelina Patti paid a
visit to the KEARSARGE at Marseilles in '65--George Dewey was our
second officer--and you were bowing and backing away from her, and
you backed into an open hatch, and she said 'my French isn't up to
it' what was it she said?"

"I didn't hear it," said Marshall; "I was too far down the hatch."

"Do you mean the old KEARSARGE?" asked Mrs. Cairns. "Were you in
the service then, Mr. Marshall? "

With loyal pride in his friend, the admiral answered for him: