"Oh, indeed! Logarithms?"

"Of course not."

"What then?"

"Why, 'Peter Simple'--to be sure."

"Ah, ha!" said Fitzroy, with a chuckle that showed plainly he had some
delicious reminiscences of youthful study in the same quarter.

The little lord chuckled too, and put one finger on Fitzroy's shoulder,
and pointed at the cot with another. "Tumble out the other side, you
know--slippery hitches--cords cut--down you come flop in the middle of
the night."

Fitzroy's eye flashed merriment: but only for a moment. His countenance
fell the next. "Lord bless you," said he sorrowfully, "all that game
is over now. Her Majesty's ship!--it is a church afloat. The service is
going to the devil, as the old fogies say."

"Ain't you sorry?" says the little lord, cocking his eye again like the
bird hereinbefore mentioned.

"Of course I am."

"Then I'll take the standing bed."

"All right. I say, you don't mind the doctor coming down with a run,
eh?"