a piece. Of all the
blessed insults rolled into one, this here's the worstest. You might
have called me a marine, or you might have called me a Frenchman, but to
make out that I'm both a marine and a Frenchman, d--me, if it isn't
enough to make human nature stand on an end! Now, I've done with you."

"And a good job, too," said the admiral. "I wish I'd thought of it
before. You're worse than a third day's ague, or a hot and a cold fever
in the tropics."--"Very good," said Jack; "I only hope Providence will
have mercy upon you, and keep an eye upon you when I'm gone, otherwise,
I wonder what will become of you? It wasn't so when young Belinda, who
you took off the island of Antiggy, in the Ingies, jumped overboard, and
I went after her in a heavy swell. Howsomdever, never mind, you shook
hands with me then; and while a bushel of the briny was weeping out of
the corner of each of your blinkers, you says, says you,--"

"Hold!" cried the admiral, "hold! I know what I said, Jack. It's cut a
fathom deep in my memory. Give us your fist, Jack, and--and--"--"Hold
yourself," said Jack; "I know what you're going to say, and I won't hear
you say it--so there's an end of it. Lor bless you! I knows you. I ain't
a going to leave you. Don't be afraid; I only works you up, and works
you down again, just to see if there's any of that old spirit in you
when we was aboard the Victory. Don't you recollect, admiral?"

"Yes--yes; enough, Jack."--"Why, let me see--that was a matter of forty
years ago, nearly, when I was a youngster."

"There--there, Jack--that'll do. You bring the events of other years
fresh upon my memory. Peace--peace. I have not forgotten; but still, to
hear what you know of them, if recited, would give the old man a
pang."--"A pang," said Jack; "I suppose that's some dictionary word for
a punch in the eye. That would be mutiny with a vengeance; so I'm off."

"Go, go."--"I'm a going; and just to please you, I'll go to the Hall, so
you sha'n't say that you told me to do anything that I didn't."

Away went Jack, whistling an air, that might have been popular when he
and the admiral were young, and Henry Bannerworth could not but remark
that an appearance of great sadness came over the old man, when Jack was
gone.

"I fear, sir," he said, "that heedless sailor has touched upon some
episode in your existence, the wounds of which are still fresh enough to
give you pain."--"It is so," said the old admiral; "just look at me