ted with impatience for his convalescence, in order
that they might see Mr Rattlin's _elder brother_ receive the remainder
of his six dozen.

I verily believe that, as I approached my native shores, I should have
fallen into a settled depression of spirits, which would have terminated
in melancholy madness, had I not been roused to exert my moral energies,
and awaken my half-entombed pride, by a stinging and a very wholesome
insult.

So soon as we were ordered home, Captain Reud's mental aberrations
became less frequent; but, when they supervened, they were more
extravagant in their nature. He grew roguish, fretful, and cruel.
Though he never spoke to me harshly, he addressed me more rarely. I had
not dined with him for a long while: he had taken the mysterious
destruction of my wardrobe as a valid excuse; and had gone so far, on
one occasion, in a very delicate manner, as to present me with a
complete change of linen, which perished like the rest, under the
provident care of Joshua. But, after the claim of relationship by that
very timid personage, there was no consideration in Reud's look; and,
whenever he did speak to me, there was a contemptuous harshness in his
tone that would have very much wounded my feelings at any other time.
But, just then, I took but little notice of and interest in anything.

When I say that we were reduced to rags in our habiliments, the reader
is not to take the words _au pied de lettre_. By taking up slops from
the purser, and by aid of the ship's tailor, we had been enabled to walk
the quarter-deck without actual holes in our dress; but the dresses
themselves were grotesque, for the imitation of our spruce uniform was
villainous, and our hats were deplorable; they were greased with oil,
and broken, and sewed, and formless, or rather multiform: bad as were
our fittings-out, we had not enough of them.

Through the rude and the cold flying mists of winter, after we had
struck soundings, we again saw England. It was in the inclement month
of January: I was starved and half clad. A beggar of any decent
pretension, had he met me in the streets of London, would have taken the
wall of me, though I had, at the time, more than three hundred dollars
in cash, Spanish doubloons and silver, a power for drawing bills for a
hundred a year, more than three years' pay due, and prize-money to a
very considerable amount.

Under these circumstances, my eyes once more greeted my native land.

I g