THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
adding some gruesome streaks of pea green to the black, gray, white and blue already there. Tip claimed that you couldn't tell the Sans Souci from a mermaid half a mile distant, and Nelson was prepared to believe it, even though he had never seen a mermaid. Lieutenant Putnam-Earle greeted Nelson politely but failed to accept the hand that Nelson unthinkingly extended. ("You mustn't mind Put," said his junior afterwards. "He's like that. Awf'ly fussy, you know, about rank and all that rot. Comes of one of our oldest families. So old it's fairly putrid. He's not a half bad old chap.") Nelson didn't allow the incident to worry him. Of course the lieutenant had been quite right. A commanding officer doesn't shake hands with an ordinary seaman on being introduced; at least, not on duty. The lieutenant struck Nelson as being a far from cheerful companion for a fellow like Tip, and wondered what it was like to have to live with him for three days at a stretch at sea. The crew seemed a fine lot of young Britons, and he could understand a portion of Tip's enthusiasm for his command.
As the Sans Souci spent three days on duty and three days in port alternately, Nelson usually had a good deal of Tip's society when the Gyandotte
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