ger? Good bye, old bloak--I'll leave you to repent,
and when old grim death comes yard-arm and yard-arm with you, and you
can't shake off his boarding-tackle, you'll say, 'Where's Jack Pringle?'
says you; and then what's his mane--oh ah! echo you call it--echo'll
say, it's d----d if it knows."

Jack turned upon his heel, and, before the admiral could make any reply
he left the place.

"What's the rascal up to now?" said the admiral. "I really didn't think
he'd have taken me at my word."

"Oh, then, after all, you didn't mean it, uncle?" said Charles.

"What's that to you, you lubber, whether I mean it, or not, you
shore-going squab? Of course I expect everybody to desert an old hulk,
rats and all--and now Jack Pringle's gone; the vagabond, couldn't he
stay, and get drunk as long as he liked! Didn't he say what he pleased,
and do what he pleased, the mutinous thief? Didn't he say I run away
from a Frenchman off Cape Ushant, and didn't I put up with that?"

"But, my dear uncle, you sent him away yourself."

"I didn't, and you know I didn't; but I see how it is, you've disgusted
Jack among you. A better seaman never trod the deck of a man-of-war."

"But his drunkenness, uncle?"

"It's a lie. I don't believe he ever got drunk. I believe you all
invented it, and Jack's so good-natured, he tumbled about just to keep
you in countenance."

"But his insolence, uncle; his gross insolence towards you--his
inventions, his exaggerations of the truth?"

"Avast, there--avast, there--none of that, Master Charlie; Jack couldn't
do anything of the sort; and I means to say this, that if Jack was here
now, I'd stick up for him, and say he was a good seaman.

"Tip us your fin, then," said Jack, darting into the room; "do you think
I'd leave you, you d----d old fool? What would become of you, I wonder,
if I wasn't to take you in to dry nurse? Why, you blessed old babby,
what do you mean by it?"

"Jack, you villain!"

"Ah! go on and call me a villain as much as you like. Don't you remember
when the bullets were scuttling our nobs?"

"I do, I do, Jack; tip us your fin, old fellow. You've saved my life
more than once."

"It's a lie."

"It ain't. You did, I say."

"You bed----d!"

And thus was the most serious misunderstanding that these two worthies
ever had together made up. The real fact is, that the admiral could as
little do without Jack, as he could have done without food; and as for
Pringle, he no more thought of l