The Lieutenant saluted.

"From the Fleet, my lord--off Cadiz; or rather, off Cape Trafalgaro."

He drew the sealed dispatch from an inner breast-pocket and handed it
to the First Lord.

"Here, step into the Board Room. . . . Where the devil are my
spectacles?" he demanded of the valet, who had sprung forward to hold
open the door.

Evidently the Board Room had been but a few hours ago the scene of a
large dinner-party. Glasses, dessert-plates, dishes of fruit,
decanters empty and half empty, cumbered the great mahogany table
as dead and wounded, guns and tumbrils, might a battlefield.
Chairs stood askew; crumpled napkins lay as they had been dropped or
tossed, some on the floor, others across the table between the
dishes.

"Looks cosy, eh?" commented the First Lord. "Maggs, set a screen
around the fire, and look about for a decanter and some clean
glasses."

He drew a chair close to the reviving fire, and glanced at the cover
of the dispatch before breaking its seal.

"Nelson's handwriting?" he asked. It was plain that his old eyes,
unaided by spectacles, saw the superscription only as a blur.

"No, my lord: Admiral Collingwood's," said Lieutenant Lapenotiere,