ng, Charley Bowles, unless you've got
more than that to tell us."

"So I might, Cappen, and I won't deny you there. But the discourse were
consarning Squire Carne now just, and the troubles he fell into, before
I was come to my judgment yet. Why, an uncle of mine served footman
there--Jeremiah Bowles, known to every one, until he was no more heard
of."

Nods of assent to the fame of Jeremiah encouraged the stout young man in
his tale, and a wedge of tobacco rekindled him.

"Yes, it were a coorous thing indeed, and coorous for me to hear of it,
out of all mast-head of Springhaven. Says Moosoo Jacks to me, that night
when I boused him up unpretending: 'You keep your feather eye open, my
tear,' for such was his way of pronouncing it, 'and you shall arrive to
laglore, laglore--and what is still nobler, de monnay. In one two tree
month, you shall see a young captain returned to his contray dominion,
and then you will go to his side and say Jacks, and he will make present
to you a sack of silver.' Well, I hailed the chance of this pretty
smart, you may suppose, and I asked him what the sailor's name would be,
and surprised I was when he answered Carne, or Carny, for he gave it in
two syllables. Next morning's tide, the Doctor Humm cleared out, and I
had no other chance of discourse with Moosoo Jacks. But I want to know
what you think, Cappen Zeb."

"So you shall," said the captain of Springhaven, sternly. "I think
you had better call your Moosoo Jacks 'Master Jackass,' or 'Master
Jackanapes,' and put your own name on the back of him. You been with a
Frenchman hob and nobbing, and you don't even know how they pronounce
themselves, unchristian as it is to do so. 'Jarks' were his name, the
very same as Navy beef, and a common one in that country. But to speak
of any Carne coming nigh us with French plottings, and of prawns landing
here at Springhaven--'tis as likely as I should drop French money into
the till of this baccy-box. And you can see that I be not going to play
such a trick as that, John Prater."

"Why to my mind there never was bigger stuff talked," the landlord spoke
out, without fear of offence, for there was no other sign-board within
three miles, "than to carry on in that way, Charley. What they may do
at Littlehampton is beyond my knowledge, never having kept a snug crib
there, as you was pleased to call it. But at Springhaven 'twould be the
wrong place for hatching of French treacheries. We all know one ano