And there the Admiral discovered it three-quarters of an hour later.
He came home wanting his tea; and, finding the boudoir empty, advanced
to ring the bell. At that moment his eyes fell on Smithers' replica of
the very photograph he had passed for furtherance to the Home Secretary.
He picked it up and gave vent to a long whistle.

"Now, how the dickens--"

His wife appeared in the doorway, with Harry, Dicky, and Theophila
clinging to her skirts, fresh from their ride, and boisterous.

"My dear Emily, where in the world did you get hold of this?"

He held the photograph towards her at arm's length, and the children
rushed forward to examine it.

"Papa! papa!" they shouted together, capering around it. "Oh, mammy,
isn't it him _exactly?_"



THE TALKING SHIPS.


He was a happy boy, for he lived beside a harbour, and just below the
last bend where the river swept out of steep woodlands into view of the
sea. A half-ruined castle, with a battery of antiquated guns, still
made-believe to protect the entrance to the harbour, and looked across
it upon a ridge of rocks surmounted by a wooden cross, which the Trinity
pilots kept in repair. Between the cross and the fort, for as long as