aptain Bulsted returned to take
command of his ship, not sooner than I wanted him, and told us of a
fierce tussle with the squire. He had stuck to him all day, and up to
11 P.M. 'By George! Harry, he had to make humble excuses to dodge out
of eyeshot a minute. Conquered him over the fourth bottle! And now all's
right. He'll see your dad. "In a barn?" says the squire. "Here 's to
your better health, sir," I bowed to him; "gentlemen don't meet in
barns; none but mice and traps make appointments there." To shorten
my story, my lad, I have arranged for the squire and your excellent
progenitor to meet at Bulsted: we may end by bringing them over a bottle
of old Greg's best. "See the boy's father," I kept on insisting. The
point is, that this confounded book must be off your shoulders, my lad.
A dirty dog may wash in a duck-pond. You see, Harry, the dear old squire
may set up your account twenty times over, but he has a right to know
how you twirl the coin. He says you don't supply the information. I
suggest to him that your father can, and will. So we get them into a
room together. I'll be answerable for the rest. And now top your boom,
and to bed here: off in the morning and tug the big vessel into port
here! And, Harry, three cheers, and another bottle to crown the victory,
if you 're the man for it?'

Julia interposed a decided negative to the proposal; an ordinarily
unlucky thing to do with bibulous husbands, and the captain looked
uncomfortably checked; but when he seemed to be collecting to assert
himself, the humour of her remark, 'Now, no bravado, William,' disarmed
him.

'Bravado, my sweet chuck?'

'Won't another bottle be like flashing your sword after you've won the
day?' said she.

He slung his arm round her, and sent a tremendous whisper into my
ear--'A perfect angel!'

I started for London next day, more troubled aesthetically regarding the
effect produced on me by this order of perfect angels than practically
anxious about material affairs, though it is true that when I came into
proximity with my father, the thought of his all but purely mechanical
power of making money spin, fly, and vanish, like sparks from a
fire-engine, awakened a serious disposition in me to bring our monetary
partnership to some definite settlement. He was living in splendour,
next door but one to the grand establishment he had driven me to from
Dipwell in the old days, with Mrs. Waddy for his housekeeper once
more, Alphonse for