over the bath-tub, which was half full of water, contemplating with
some anxiety the model of a line-of-battle ship which was floating
on it, bottom upward. "I don't think it can be quite right--do
you?" he said, nervously grasping his nephew's hand as he pointed
to the capsized vessel; "yet they always do it. Tell me!" he went
on appealingly, "tell me, as a professing Christian and a Perfect
Man--is it quite right?"

"I should think, sir," responded John Gale, with uncompromising
truthfulness, "that the average vessel of commerce is not built in
that way."

"Yet," said the First Lord of the Admiralty, with a far-off look,
"they all do it! And they don't steer! The larger they are and
the more recent the model, the less they steer. Dear me--you ought
to see 'em go round and round in that tub." Then, apparently
recalling the probable purpose of John's visit, he led the way into
his dressing-room. "So you are in London, dear boy. Is there any
little thing you want? I have," he continued, absently fumbling in
the drawers of his dressing-table, "a few curacies and a bishopric
somewhere, but with these blessed models--I can't think where they
are. Or what would you say to a nice chaplaincy in the navy, with
a becoming uniform, on one of those thingummies?" He pointed to
the bath-room. "Stay," he continued, as he passed his hand over
his perplexed brows, "now I think of it--you're quite unorthodox!
Dear me! that wouldn't do. You see, Drake,"--he paused, as John
Gale started,--"I mean Sir Francis Drake, once suspended his
chaplain for unorthodoxy, according to Froude's book. These
admirals are dreadfully strict Churchmen. No matter! Come again
some other time," he added, gently pushing his nephew downstairs