"This
came to me by this morning's mail; and I have withheld the commission
till I received it."
"And what may this be, father?" asked Christy, looking from the missive
to the captain's face, which was glowing with smiles, for he was as
proud of his only son as he ought to have been.
"Christy, you remind me of some old ladies I have met, who, when they
receive a letter, wonder for five or ten minutes whom it is from before
they break the envelope, when a sight of the contents would inform them
instantly," added the captain, laughing.
"But I am afraid the contents of this envelope will be like the
explosion of a mine to me, and therefore I am not just like the old
ladies you have met," returned the lieutenant-commander. "One mine a day
let off in my face is about all I can stand."
"Open the envelope!" urged his father rather impatiently.
"It never rains but it pours!" exclaimed Christy, when he had looked
over the paper it enclosed. "I am appointed to the command of the St.
Regis! I think some one who gives names to our new vessels must have
spent a summer with Paul Smith at his hotel by the river and lake of
that name; and the same man probably selected the name of Chateaugay.
I suppose it is some little snapping gunboat like the Bronx; but I don't
object to her on that account."
"She is nothing like the Bronx, for she is more than twice as large; and
you have already seen some service on her deck.
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