ey-raking, like a stinking ray-fish when the tide goes
out; thundering scoundrels that make a living of it, pushing out for
roguery with their legs tucked up; no courage for smuggling, nor honest
enough, they goes on anyhow with their children paid for. We found
out what he were, and made us more ashamed, for such a sneaking rat to
preach upon us, like a regular hordinated chaplain, as might say a word
or two and mean no harm, with the license of the Lord to do it. So my
son Bob and me called a court-martial in the old tower, so soon as we
come round; and we had a red herring, because we was thirsty, and we
chawed a bit of pigtail to keep it down. At first we was glum; but we
got our peckers up, as a family is bound to do when they comes together.
My son Bob was a sharp lad in his time, and could read in Holy Scripter
afore he chewed a quid; and I see'd a good deal of it in his mind now,
remembering of King Solomon. 'Dad,' he says, 'fetch out that bottle as
was left of French white brandy, and rouse up a bit of fire in the old
port-hole. We ain't got many toes to warm between us'--only five, you
see, your worship--'but,' says he, 'we'll warm up the currents where
they used to be.'

"According to what my son said, I done; for he leadeth me now, being
younger of the two, and still using half of a shoemaker. However, I says
to him, 'Warm yourself; it don't lay in my power to do that for you.' He
never said nothing; for he taketh after me, in tongue and other likings;
but he up with the kettle on the fire, and put in about a fathom and
a half of pigtail. 'So?' says I; and he says, 'So!' and we both of us
began to laugh, as long and as gentle as a pair of cockles, with their
tongues inside their shells.

"Well, your honor understands; I never spake so much before since ever
I pass my coorting-time. We boiled down the pigtail to a pint of tidy
soup, and strained it as bright as sturgeon juice; then we got a bottle
with 'Navy Supply' on a bull's-eye in the belly of it; and we filled
it with the French white brandy, and the pigtail soup, and a noggin of
molasses, and shook it all up well together; and a better contract-rum,
your honor, never come into high admiral's stores."

"But, Joseph, good Joseph," cried Mr. Mordacks, "do forge ahead a little
faster. Your private feelings, and the manufacture of them, are highly
interesting to you; but I only want to know what came of it."

"Your honor is like a child hearing of a story