"I congratulate you with all my heart and mind, Commander Passford," he added, with exceeding warmth. "I know that you deserved this promotion, and I was sure you would get it from the moment I saw you in the mizzen rigging of the Bellevite, and within the same minute leaping over the rail of the Tallahatchie, closely followed by thirty or forty of your seamen. I lost all hope of taking your ship then, for almost at the same instant came the discharge of the thirty-pounder I had prepared to lay low half your boarders. I told you this would come, but you seemed to be doubtful of it; and I repeat what I have said before, that God makes some fully-developed men before they are twenty-one."