see, if he don't--D--n it! what's that? Can't you keep
things to yourself?"

This latter exclamation arose from the fact that the admiral was so
indignant at Jack for listening to what he had been saying, as to throw
a leaden inkstand, that happened to be upon the table, at his head.

"You mutinous swab!" he said, "cannot a gentleman ask me to dinner, or
cannot I ask myself, without you putting your spoke in the windlass, you
vagabond?"

"Oh! well," said Jack, "if you are out of temper about it, I had better
send my mark to the lawyer, and tell him that we won't come, as it has
made some family differences."

"Family, you thief!" said the admiral. "What do you mean? What family do
you think would own you? D--n me, if I don't think you came over in some
strange ship. But, I tell you what it is, if you interfere in this
matter, I'll be hanged if I don't blow your brains out."

"And you'll be hanged if you do," said Jack, as he walked out of the
room; "so it's all one either way, old fizgig."

"What!" roared the admiral, as he sprang up and ran after Jack. "Have I
lived all these years to be called names in my own ship--I mean my own
house? What does the infernal rascal mean by it?"

The admiral, no doubt, would have pursued Jack very closely, had not
Flora intercepted him, and, by gentle violence, got him back to the
room. No one else could have ventured to have stopped him, but the
affection he had for her was so great that she could really accomplish
almost anything with him; and, by listening quietly to his complaints of
Jack Pringle--which, however, involved a disclosure of the fact which he
had intended to keep to himself, that he had sought the lawyer's
advice--she succeeded in soothing him completely, so that he forgot his
anger in a very short time.

But the old man's anger, although easily aroused, never lasted very
long; and, upon the whole, it was really astonishing what he put up with
from Jack Pringle, in the way of taunts and sneers, of all sorts and
descriptions, and now and then not a little real abuse.

And, probably, he thought likewise that Jack Pringle did not mean what
he said, on the same principle that he (the admiral), when he called
Jack a mutinous swab and a marine, certainly did not mean that Jack was
those things, but merely used them as expletives to express a great
amount of indignation at the moment, because, as may be well supposed,
nothing in the world could be worse, in Admiral