"And now you must really excuse me," continued the Resident, "for it
is my duty, as a director of the Royal Naval Exhibition to start the
donkey races. I suppose you have had nothing like our Exhibition down
below?"
"Nothing," returned the Sage.
[Illustration]
"So I thought," was the reply. "If you have time, you can call upon
the Admiral Survival of the Fittest."
"Gentlemen," said that illustrious official, after they had entered
his bureau, "it is usual to salute me by tugging at your forelocks
and scraping the deck with your right feet. While you perform this
operation, you will notice that I will hitch up my trousers in true
nautical style."
"Oh, certainly," returned _Mr. Punch_, "Delighted! But, Admiral, isn't
that sort of thing a little old-fashioned?"
"And what of that, Sir? In spite of everything _we_ still have hearts
of oak. We have _not_ changed since the time of NELSON and Trafalgar.
We can still run up the rigging (there isn't any but that is an
unimportant detail) like kittens, and reef a sail (there's not one
left, but what does _that_ matter?) in a Nor-Wester as our ancestors
did before us. And if you don't believe me, go to any public dinner
when response is being made for the Navy."
"But if the ships have changed, would it not be better if the crews
had undergone an appropriate transformation?"
"We don't think so.
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