lived for so many years among men of his own stamp, who had grown
grey and bald, and rickety, and weak alongside of him, that he
had no opportunity of seeing that he was more grey or more
rickety than his neighbours. No children had become men and women
at his feet; no new race had gone out into the world and fought
their battles under his notice. One set of midshipmen had
succeeded to another, but his old comrades in the news-rooms and
lounging-places at Devonport had remained the same; and Captain
Cuttwater had never learnt to think that he was not doing, and
was not able to do good service for his country.

The very name of Captain Cuttwater was odious to every clerk at
the Admiralty. He, like all naval officers, hated the Admiralty,
and thought, that of all Englishmen, those five who had been
selected to sit there in high places as joint lords were the most
incapable. He pestered them with continued and almost continuous
applications on subjects of all sorts. He was always asking for
increased allowances, advanced rank, more assistance, less work,
higher privileges, immunities which could not be granted, and
advantages to which he had no claim. He never took answers, but
made every request the subject of a prolonged correspondence;
till at last some energetic Assistant-Secretary declared that it
should no longer be borne, and Captain Cuttwater was dismissed
with pension and half-pay. During his service he had contrived to
save some four or five thousand pounds, and now he was about to
retire with an assured income adequate to all his wants. The
public who had the paying of Captain Cuttwater may, perhaps,
think that he was amply remunerated for what he had done; but the
captain himself entertained a very different opinion.