which had passed, according to its fate,
through a large number of unclean hands.

"Now the pattern, your honor," said Bob, with a grin; "I could do it
from memory, but better from the thing." He took the bauble, and set it
on the foot of a rummer which stood on the table; and in half a minute
he had the counterpart in size, shape, and line; but without the
inscription. "A sample of them in the hollow will do, and good enough
for the nigger-body words--heathen writing, to my mind." With lofty
British intolerance, he felt that it might be a sinful thing to make
such marks; nevertheless he impressed one side, whereon the characters
were boldest, into the corresponding groove of his paste model; then he
scooped up the model on the broad blade of his knife, and set it in the
oven of the little fire-place, in a part where the heat was moderate.

"Well done, indeed!" cried Mr. Mordacks; "you will have a better
likeness of it than good Mother Precious. Robert, I admire your
ingenuity. But all sailors are ingenious."

"At sea, in the trades, or in a calm, Sir, what have we to do but to
twiddle our thumbs, and practice fiddling with them? A lively tune is
what I like, and a-serving of the guns red-hot; a man must act according
to what nature puts upon him. And nature hath taken one of my legs from
me with a cannon-shot from the French line-of-battle ship--Rights of
Mankind the name of her."

CHAPTER XXVII

THE PROPER WAY TO ARGUE

Alas, how seldom is anything done in proper time and season! Either too
fast, or too slow, is the clock of all human dealings; and what is the
law of them, when the sun (the regulator of works and ways) has to be
allowed for very often on his own meridian? With the best intention
every man sets forth to do his duty, and to talk of it; and he makes
quite sure that he has done it, and to his privy circle boasts, or lets
them do it better for him; but before his lips are dry, his ears apprise
him that he was a stroke too late.

So happened it with Master Mordacks, who of all born men was foremost,
with his wiry fingers spread, to pass them through the scattery forelock
of that mettlesome horse, old Time. The old horse galloped by him
unawares, and left him standing still, to hearken the swish of the tail,
and the clatter of the hoofs, and the spirited nostrils neighing for
a race, on the wide breezy down at the end of the lane. But Geoffrey
Mordacks was not to blame. His instructions were to