service too well to ask you, a quarter-deck
officer, to my house under other circumstances."

"Don't speak of that, Mr Johnson," said I, feeling sure that he would
be pleased if I accepted his invitation, and wishing perhaps a little to
gratify my own curiosity. "I shall be delighted to go to your house.
You forget how much I am indebted to you for having several times saved
my life, and that puts us on an equality on shore, if not on board;
besides, remember I know all about your wife, and I do not think that I
ever returned you the letter you gave me for her when you thought you
might be killed."

"All right, Mr Merry; don't let's have any protestations; we're brother
seamen and shipmates, and thoroughly appreciate each other, though some
of the incidents I mentioned in my wonderful narratives might shake some
people's confidence in my veracity," he remarked, again grasping my
hand.

"However, that is neither here nor there. You understand me, and that's
enough. If you and Mr Grey like, we will take a post-chaise between
us, and post up to town. I am impatient to be at home, and you will
have no objection, I dare say, to whisk as fast along the road as four
posters can make the wheels go round."

Grey and I willingly agreed to Mr Johnson's proposition. Spellman was
not asked, and had he been, we concluded that he would not have accepted
the invitation, so we said nothing about it to him. We had a jolly
paying-off dinner, with the usual speeches, and compliments, and toasts.
After the health of the King was drunk and all the Royal family, and
other important personages, Mr Bryan got up and said--

"Now, gentlemen, I have to propose the health of a shipmate, of, I may
say, a brother officer of mine, Lieutenant Perigal, with three times
three." Saying this, he pulled out of his pocket one of those long
official documents, such as are well-known to emanate from my Lords
Commissioners of the Admiralty.

"Come at last! hurrah!--well, it will make my dear wife happy," were the
first words the delighted Perigal could utter. I honoured him for them.
Faithful and honest, he was a true sailor. I afterwards had the
pleasure of meeting his young wife, and she was worthy of all the
eulogiums he had delighted when absent to pass on her. He had picked up
a fair share of prize-money, otherwise his half-pay of ninety pounds a
year was not much on which to support a wife and to keep up the
appearance of a gentleman. I