It was Mr. Adams who opposed you. The best place I could make was that of lieutenant. Mr. Adams wouldn’t hear of you as a captain; and since, with General Washington, Virginia and the Southern Colonies have been given control of the Army, his claim of the Navy for Massachusetts and the Northern Colonies finds general consent. Commodore Hopkins and four of the five captains, beginning with Mr. Adams’ protégé Dudley Saltonstall, go to New England. The most that I could make Mr. Adams agree to, was that you should be set at the head of the list of lieutenants.”

“I am sorry, sir, that Mr. Adams holds a poor opinion of me.” This with a sigh. “It was my dream to be a captain, and have a ship of my own. However, I am here to serve the cause, rather than promote the personal fortunes of Paul Jones. Let the list go as it is; the future doubtless will bring all things straight. I am free to say, however, that from the selections made by Mr. Adams, as you repeat them, I think he has provided for more courts-martial than victories.” The two gentlemen in talk are Mr. Hewes, member of the Colonial Congress from North Carolina, and Planter Paul Jones. Mr. Hewes is old and worn and sick, and only his granite resolution keeps him at the seat of government.

“Mr. Hancock,” continues Mr. Hewes, “is also from Massachusetts, and as chairman of our committee he gave Mr. Adams what aid he could. There’s one honor you may have, however; I arranged for that. The issuance of the commissions is with Mr. Hancock, and if you’ll accompany me to the Hall you will be given yours at once. That will make you the first, if not the highest, naval officer of the Colonies to be commissioned.”

“On what ship am I to serve?”

“The Alfred, Captain Saltonstall.”

Raw and bleak sweep the December winds through the bare streets, as the two go on their way to the Hall, where Congress holds its sittings. Fortunately, as Lieutenant Paul Jones phrases it, the wind is “aft,” and so Mr. Hewes, despite his weakness, makes better weather of it than one would look for.

“I’ll have a carriage home,” says he, panting a little, as the stiff breeze steals his breath away.

“I can’t,” breaks forth Lieutenant Paul Jones, after an interval of silence—“I can’t for the life of me make out how I incurred the enmity of Mr. Adams. I’ve never set foot in Boston, never clapped my eyes on him before I came to this city last July.”

Mr. Hewes smiles. “You sacrificed interest to epigram,” says he. Lieutenant Paul Jones glares in wonder. “Let me explain,” goes on Mr. Hewes, answering the look. “Do you recall meeting Mr. Adams at Colonel Carroll’s house out near Schuylkill Falls?”

“That was last October.”

“Precisely! Mr. Adams’ memory is quite equal to last October. The more, if the event remembered were a dig to his vanity.”

“A dig to his vanity!” repeats Lieutenant Paul Jones in astonishment. “I cannot now recall that I so much as spoke a word to the old polar bear.”

“It wasn’t a word spoken to him, but one spoken of him. This is it: Mr. Adams told an anecdote in French to little Betty Faulkner. Later you must needs be witty, and whisper to Miss Betty a satirical word anent Mr. Adams’ French.”

“Why, then,” interjects Lieutenant Paul Jones, with a whimsical grin, “I’ll tell you what I said. ‘It is fortunate,’ I observed to Miss Betty, ‘that Mr. Adams’ sentiments are not so English as is his French. If they were, he would far and away be the greatest Tory in the world.’”

“Just so!” chuckles Mr. Hewes. “And, doubtless, all very true. None the less, my young friend, your brightness cost you a captaincy. The mot was too good to keep, and little Betty started it on a journey that landed it, at a fourth telling, slap in the outraged ear of Mr. Adams himself. Make you a captain? He would as soon think of making you rich.”

The pair trudged on in silence, Mr. Hewes turning about in his mind sundry matters of colonial policy, while Lieutenant Paul Jones solaces himself by recalling how it is the even year to a day since that Norfolk ball, when he smote upon the scandalous nose of Lieutenant Parker.

“Now that I’m a lieutenant like himself,” runs the warlike cogitations of Lieutenant Paul Jones, “I’d prodigiously enjoy meeting the scoundrel afloat. I might teach his dullness a better opinion of us.”

Lieutenant Paul Jones for months has been hard at work; one day in conference with the Marine Committee, leading them by the light of his ship-knowledge; the next busy with adz and oakum and calking iron, repairing and renewing the tottering hulks which the agents of the colonies have collected as the nucleus of the baby navy. Over this very ship the Alfred, on which he is to sail lieutenant, he has toiled as though it were intended as a present for his bride. He confidently counted on being made its captain; now to sail as a subordinate, when he looked to have command, is a bitter disappointment. Sail he will, however, and that without murmur; for he is too much the patriot to hang back, too strong a heart to sulk. Besides, he has the optimism of the born war dog.

“Given open war,” thinks he, “what more should one ask than a cutlass, and the chance to use it? Once we&............