s
afterwards. "I cannot do without your mother, that's certain; but what am I
to do with your father? Humph! Well, she must take charge of him as well as
Amber. She must teach him--"

"Teach him what, sir?" replied Newton, laughing.

"Teach him what? Why, to leave my watch and spectacles alone. I dare not
lay them down for a moment."

"I think we may teach him that, sir, if it is all that you require."

"I ask no more: then he may go about the house like a tame rabbit. When
will your ship be ready, boy?"

"In about a fortnight, sir. I called upon Captain Oughton the day before
yesterday, but he was not at home. His steward gave me the information."

"What is the name of the ship?"

"The _Windsor Castle_, sir."

"Why, all the India ships appear to be called Castles. Your last ship was
the _Bombay Castle_, I think?"

"Yes, sir: there are a great many of them so named--they really are
floating castles."

"And full of ladies. You 'castle your queens,' as they do at chess. Humph!"

A pun from Mr John Forster was a rarity: he never had been known to make
one before: and Newton asserts that he never heard him guilty of it
afterwards. It deserves, therefore, bad as it was, to be recorded.

Chapter XLIV

"----but to stick to my route
'Twill be hard, if some novelty can't be struck out.
Is there no Algerine, no Kamschatkan arrived?
No plenipo-pacha, three-tail'd and three wived?
No Russian, whose dissonant, consonant name
Almost rattles to fragments the trumpet of fame?

POSTSCRIPT.
By-the-bye, have you found any friend who can construe
That Latin account, t'other day, of a monster?
If we can't get a Russian--and that story in Latin
Be not _too_ improper, I think I'll bring that in."

MOORE.

A few mornings after this colloquy with his uncle, Newton was very busy
perambulating the streets of London, in search of various requisites for
his trip to India, when his hand was seized before he had time to call to
mind the features of the party who shook it with such apparent warmth.

"My dear Mr Forster, I am so delighted to see you, so happy to hear of your
gallant adventure with the French squadron. Mrs Plausible will be quite
pleased at meeting her old shipmate; she often talks about you. I must make
sure of you," continued the doctor, drawing from his pocket a large packet
of cards, and inserting at the top of one Newton Forster's name with his
pencil. "This is an invitat