He stopped dead.

"Old Lush!--Lushy, the Gunner, Gorblessim!" swelling his chest, and
patting it. "And why?--because there wasn't a quarter-deck officer,
not so much as a middy or mate, left to do it."

He resumed his strut with fighting hands.

"That's our sort aboard the _Tremendous_, sir. We're the
halleloojah lads to fight. And what we are, old Ding-dong made us."

"Who's old Ding-dong?" asked the boy, breathlessly.

The Gunner shot a finger at the block-of-granite figure forward.

"That's the man as won the battle o the Nile," he whispered with husky
magnificence. "And ere's the man that elped him."

He bowed with wide hands. Drunk as he was there was yet a dilapidated
splendour about the fellow as about an historic ruin. The boy felt it
through his disgust.

"I thought Nelson did a bit," he said.

"Nelson did much; I did more; _e_ did most," with a wave forward.
"Why!" shouting now. "Who was it led the line inside the shoal--creepin
it, leadsman in the chains, soundin all the way?--We _Thunderers_,
the _Goliath_ treadin mighty jealous on our heels. And who
commanded the _Thunderer_?--Old Ding-dong. And what did he get
for it?"