n; and therefore proposed
that he should be decoyed into his own interest by a feigned story, in
consequence of which he would be prevailed upon to accept of the money,
as a debt which the commodore had contracted of his father at sea.
Trunnion made wry faces at this expedient, the necessity of which he
could not conceive, without calling in question the common sense of
Gauntlet; as he took it for granted that such offers as those were not
to be rejected on any consideration whatever. Besides, he could not
digest an artifice, by which he himself must own that he had lived so
many years without manifesting the least intention of doing justice to
his creditor. All these objections, however, were removed by the zeal
and rhetoric of Peregrine, who represented that it would be impossible
to befriend him on any other terms; that his silence hitherto would
be imputed to his want of information touching the circumstances and
condition of his friend; and that his remembering and insisting upon
discharging the obligation, after such an interval of time, when the
whole affair was in oblivion, would be the greatest compliment he could
pay to his own honour and integrity.

Thus persuaded, he took an opportunity of Gauntlet's being alone with
him to broach the affair, telling the young man that his father had
advanced a sum of money for him, when they sailed together, on account
of the mess, as well as to stop the mouth of a clamorous creditor at
Portsmouth; and that the said sum, with interest, amounted to about four
hundred pounds, which he would now, with great thankfulness, repay.

Godfrey was amazed at this declaration, and, after a considerable pause,
replied, that he had never heard his parents mention any such debt; that
no memorandum or voucher of it was found among his father's papers;
and that, in all probability, it must have been discharged long ago,
although the commodore, in such a long course of time and hurry of
occupation, might have forgotten the repayment: he therefore desired to
be excused from accepting what in his own conscience he believed was
not his due; and complemented the old gentleman upon his being so
scrupulously just and honourable.

The soldier's refusal, which was matter of astonishment to Trunnion,
increased his inclination to assist him; and, on pretence of acquitting
his own character, he urged his beneficence with such obstinacy, that
Gauntlet, afraid of disobliging him, was in a manner compel