hought, in whatever circumstances we found
ourselves, we never forgot that our frigate, had as it was, was
homeward-bound. Such, at least, were our reveries at times, though
sorely jarred, now and then, by events that took our philosophy aback.
For after all, philosophy--that is, the best wisdom that has ever in
any way been revealed to our man-of-war world--is but a slough and a
mire, with a few tufts of good footing here and there.

But there was one man in the mess who would have naught to do with our
philosophy--a churlish, ill-tempered, unphilosophical, superstitious
old bear of a quarter-gunner; a believer in Tophet, for which he was
accordingly preparing himself. Priming was his name; but methinks I
have spoken of him before.

Besides, this Bland, the master-at-arms, was no vulgar, dirty knave. In
him--to modify Burke's phrase--vice _seemed_, but only seemed, to lose
half its seeming evil by losing all its apparent grossness. He was a
neat and gentlemanly villain, and broke his biscuit with a dainty hand.
There was a fine polish about his whole person, and a pliant,
insinuating style in his conversation, that was, socially, quite
irresistible. Save my noble captain, Jack Chase, he proved himself the
most entertaining, I had almost said the most companionable man in the
mess. Nothing but his mouth, that was somewhat small, Moorish-arched,
and wickedly delicate, and his snaky, black eye, that at times shone
like a dark-lantern in a jeweller-shop at midnight, betokened the
accomplished scoundrel within. But in his conversation there was no
trace of evil; nothing equivocal; he studiously shunned an indelicacy,
never swore, and chiefly abounded in passing puns and witticisms,
varied with humorous contrasts between ship and shore life, and many
agreeable and racy anecdotes, very tastefully narrated. In short--in a
merely psychological point of view, at least--he was a charming
blackleg. Ashore, such a man might have been an irreproachable
mercantile swindler, circulating in polite society.

But he was still more than this. Indeed, I claim for this
master-at-arms a lofty and honourable niche in the Newgate Calendar of
history. His intrepidity, coolness, and wonderful self-possession in
calmly resigning himself to a fate that thrust him from an office in
which he had tyrannised over five hundred mortals, many of whom hated
and loathed him, passed all belief; his intrepidity, I say, in now
fearlessly gliding among them