re a man
we can respect, a good seaman, master of your ship, and hearty, and no
mewing sanctimoniousness, and we can see and excuse your mistake as to us
two; but now, there's my father at home--he's a good man, but he 's a man
of the world, and reads his classics and his Bible. He's none the worse
for it, I assure you.'

'Where was his son the night of the fog?' said the captain.

'Well, he happened to be out in it.'

'Where'd he be now but for one o' my men?'

'Who can answer that, Captain Welsh?'

'I can, my lad-stewing in an ante-room of hell-gates, I verily believe.'

Temple sighed at the captain's infatuation, and said, 'I'll tell you of a
fellow at our school named Drew; he was old Rippenger's best theological
scholar--always got the prize for theology. Well, he was a confirmed
sneak. I've taken him into a corner and described the torments of dying
to him, and his look was disgusting--he broke out in a clammy sweat.
"Don't, don't!" he'd cry. "You're just the fellow to suffer intensely," I
told him. And what was his idea of escaping it? Why, by learning the
whole of Deuteronomy and the Acts of the Apostles by heart! His idea of
Judgement Day was old Rippenger's half-yearly examination. These are
facts, you know, Captain Welsh.'

I testified to them briefly.

The captain said a curious thing: 'I'll make an appointment with you in
leviathan's jaws the night of a storm, my lad.'

'With pleasure,' said Temple.

'The Lord send it!' exclaimed the captain.

His head was bent forward, and he was gazing up into his eyebrows.

Before we knew that anything was coming, he was out on a narrative of a
scholar of one of the Universities. Our ears were indifferent to the
young man's career from the heights of fortune to delirium tremens down
the cataract of brandy, until the captain spoke of a dark night on the
Pool of the Thames; and here his voice struggled, and we tried hard to
catch the thread of the tale. Two men and a girl were in the boat. The
men fought, the girl shrieked, the boat was upset, the three were
drowned.

All this came so suddenly that nothing but the captain's heavy thump of
his fist on the table kept us from laughing.

He was quite unable to relate the tale, and we had to gather it from his
exclamations. One of the men was mate of a vessel lying in the Pool,
having only cast anchor that evening; the girl was his sweetheart; the
other man had once been a fine young University gentleman, and h