y foe
would stride across the delicious vision, huge against the waves like
Cyclops, and like him gesticulant, but unhappily not so single-eyed that
the slippery fair might despise him. Then away would fly all sense of
art and joy in the touch of perfection, and a very nasty feeling would
ensue, as if nothing were worth living for, and nobody could be believed
in.

That plaguesome Polypheme was Captain Stubbard, begirt with a wife,
and endowed with a family almost in excess of benediction, and dancing
attendance upon Miss Dolly, too stoutly for his own comfort, in the hope
of procuring for his own Penates something to eat and to sit upon. Some
evil genius had whispered, or rather trumpeted, into his ear--for he
had but one left, and that worked very seldom, through alarm about the
bullet which had carried off its fellow--that if he desired, as he did
with heart and stomach, to get a clear widening by 200 pounds of his
strait ways and restricted means, through Admiral Darling it might
be done, and Miss Dolly was the proper one to make him do it. For the
Inspectorship of Sea-Fencibles from Selsea-Bill to Dungeness was worth
all that money in hard cash yearly; and the late Inspector having
quitted this life--through pork boiled in a copper kettle--the situation
was naturally vacant; and the Admiral being the man for whose check the
Inspectorship was appointed, it is needless to say that (in the spirit
of fair play) the appointment was vested in the Admiral.

The opinion of all who knew him was that Captain Stubbard was fairly
entitled to look for something higher. And he shared that opinion,
taking loftier aim than figures could be made to square with, till the
latter prevailed, as they generally do, because they can work without
victuals. For although the brave Captain had lost three ribs--or at any
rate more than he could spare of them (not being a pig)--in the service
of his country, he required as much as ever to put inside them; and
his children, not having inherited that loss as scientifically as
they should have done, were hard to bring up upon the 15 pounds yearly
allowed by Great Britain for each of the gone bones. From the ear that
was gone he derived no income, having rashly compounded for 25 pounds.

In the nature of things, which the names have followed, the father is
the feeder; and the world is full of remarks unless he becomes a good
clothier also. But everything went against this father, with nine little