“Don’t you, sir?  I am to inherit your estate, unconditionally—­as you have generously settled it from the first.  But I am not to touch a farthing of the fortune poor Noel left you unless I am married within a certain time.  The house and lands are to be mine (thanks to your kindness) under any circumstances.  But the money with which I might improve them both is to be arbitrarily taken away from me, if I am not a married man on the third of May.  I am sadly wanting in intelligence, I dare say, but a more incomprehensible proceeding I never heard of!”

“No snapping and snarling, George!  Say your say o ut.  We don’t understand sneering in Her Majesty’s Navy!”

“I mean no offense, sir.  But I think it’s a little hard to astonish me by a change of proceeding on your part, entirely foreign to my experience of your character—­and then, when I naturally ask for an explanation, to turn round coolly and leave me in the dark.  If you and Noel came to some private arrangement together before he made his will, why not tell me?  Why set up a mystery between us, where no mystery need be?”

“I won’t have it, George!” cried the admiral, angrily drumming on the table with the nutcrackers.  “You are trying to draw me like a badger, but I won’t be drawn!  I’ll make any conditions I please; and I’ll be accountable to nobody for them unless I like.  It’s quite bad enough to have worries and responsibilities laid on my unlucky shoulders that I never bargained for—­never mind what worries:  they’re not yours, they’re mine—­without being questioned and cross-questioned as if I was a witness in a box.  Here’s a pretty fellow!” continued the admiral, apostrophizing his nephew in red-hot irritation, and addressing himself to the dogs on the hearth-rug for want of a better audience.  “Here’s a pretty fellow?  He is asked to help himself to two uncommonly comfortable things in their way—­a fortune and a wife; he is allowed six months to get the wife in (we should have got her, in the Navy, bag and baggage, in six days); he has a round dozen of nice girls, to my certain knowledge, in one part of the country and another, all at his disposal to choose from, and what does he do?  He sits month after month, with his lazy legs crossed before him; he leaves the girls to pine on the stem, and he bothers his uncle to know the reason why!  I pity the poor unfortunate women.  Men were made of flesh and blood, and plenty of it, too, in my time.  They’re made of machinery now.”

“I can only repeat, sir, I am sorry to have offended you,” said George.

“Pooh! pooh! you needn’t look at me in that languishing way if you are,” retorted the admiral.  “Stick to your wine, and I’ll forgive you.  Your good health, George.  I’m glad to see you again at St. Crux.  Look at that plateful of sponge-cakes!  The cook has sent them up in honor of your return.  We can’t hurt her feelings, and we can’t spoil our wine.  Here!”—­The admiral tossed four sponge-cakes in quick succession down the accommodating throats of the dogs.  “I am sorry, George,” the old gentleman gravely proceeded; “I am really sorry you haven’t got your eye on one of those nice girls.  You don’t know what a loss you’re inflicting on yourself; you don’t know what trouble and mortification you’re causing me by this shilly-shally conduct of yours.”