"It's the French instructor, I believe, sir," said the flag-lieutenant.  

"H'm! fancy that on board my ship!"  

"Regulations, sir; paragraph 574d says: Whenever practicable instruction in French is to be given to midshipmen by French instructors domiciled in British ports."  

"Well, well. Thank goodness I'm not a midshipman," ejaculated Maynebrace, as he frantically signalled to a passing rickshaw-man.  

Whatever opinion the Frenchman had of Rear-Admiral Maynebrace he wisely kept it to himself, and trotting along with short jerky steps he reached the place where the gig from H.M.S. "Repulse" awaited him.  

The coxswain could scarce suppress a grin as the instructor stepped into the stern sheets. His surprise was still greater when the latter took the yoke-lines and gave the order to "Pull you to ze ship!"  

Bending their backs to the supple ash oars the boats crew made the gig dart rapidly through the water. Some of them, possibly, wondered what order the grotesque object in the stern-sheets would give as the boat ran alongside the flagship. As a matter of fact he gave none, but pulling at the wrong yoke-line he made the light gig collide bows on with the accommodation ladder, jerking the rowers backwards off their thwarts, and causing himself to sit ungracefully upon the gratings.  

Considering his corpulence the instructor picked himself up with agility and, not waiting for the boat to be brought properly alongside, made his way from thwart to thwart, gaining the foot of the accommodation-ladder by way of the bows of the gig.  

At the head of the ladder he was met by the Officer of the watch. Greatly to the latter's disgust the instructor committed a most heinous offence: he spat upon the sacred precincts of the quarter-deck and coolly threw his cigarette end upon the snowy planks!  

So flabbergasted was the duty-lieutenant that he said not a word, and before he could recover his composure he was anticipated by First-lieutenant Garboard.  

Garboard was an officer who owed his position to influence rather than to merit. He shone in the reflected light of his parent, Sir Peter Garboard, till lately Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth.  

He was one of those officers, luckily becoming rarer, who believe in cast-iron discipline 

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