uld find
his speech.

"Blood and thunder! bombs and fury! what have I done, that you should
turn me out of your house in my grey hairs--now I'm dismantled, as it
were, and laid up in ordinary?"

"Turn you out, Piggy! what could put that in your foolish noddle?"

"If madam comes in, I cut my cable, and pay off Rathelin Hall right
abaft--even if I die in a ditch, and am buried by the parish. Take a
housekeeper!--oh Lord! oh Lord! oh Lord! I would just as soon see you
married, or in your coffin."

"But some such a person is absolutely necessary in an establishment of
this extent; so a housekeeper I'll have, of some sort."

"Why the devil need it be a woman, then? why won't a man do--why won't I
do?"

"You?"

"Yes, me--Andrew Pigtop. I ask the appointment--do, there's a good Sir
Ralph, make it out directly. Clap your signature to it, and let it run
as much like a commission as possible. I ask it as a favour. You know
the great sacrifices that I have made for you."

"The first time I ever heard of them, upon my honour. Pray enlighten
me."

"Why, you must be convinced, Sir Ralph, if I had not left the navy to
attend you all the world over, as the pilot-fish sticks to the shark, I
should, by this time, have been an old post-captain, and very likely
C.B. into the bargain."

"You, who remained one quarter of a century a master's-mate during an
active war, should rush up through the grades of lieutenant and
commander to be posted during another quarter of profound peace! But,
perhaps, you would have depended upon your great family interest. Well,
if I make out your commission as my housekeeper, will you do the duties
of the office?"

"On course."

"And wear the uniform?"

"On course, if so be it be such as a man might wear; I bar petticoats
and mob-caps, and female thingamies."

"Will you carry the keys?"

"On course."

"And see that the rooms and the passages are well swept, and that the
maids are up betimes in the morning?"

"Damn them!--on course--certainly."

"And, when Lady Aurelia Cosway and her five beautiful daughters drive up
to the door, will you go and receive them in the ball; and, making them
a profound curtsey, beg to conduct them into a dressing-room?"

"No; because, d'ye see, no ladies ever came further than your door."

"And whom may I thank for that?"

"Me, assuredly," said Pigtop, very proudly.

"I do."

I did not make out his commission, which vexed him; but, on the ot