--you might have thought it uncommon good, if you had never
tasted Mrs. Stubbard's cooking, after she had been to the butcher
herself. Very well. I don't care for kickshaws, even if I could afford
them, which has never yet been my destiny. So I called for another
ration of hot sheep--beg your pardon, ladies, what I mean is mutton--and
half a dozen more of baked potatoes; and they reminded me of being at
home so much that I called for a pint of best pine-apple rum and a
brace of lemons, to know where I was--to remind me that I wasn't where I
couldn't get them."

"Oh, Adam!" cried Mrs. Stubbard, "what will you say next? Not on
weekdays, of course, but nearly every Sunday--and the samples of his
powder in his pocket, Mr. Twemlow!"

"Jemima, you are spoiling my story altogether. Well, you must
understand that this room was low, scarcely higher than the cabin of a
fore-and-after, with no skylights to it, or wind-sail, or port-hole that
would open. And so, with the summer coming on, as it is now--though a
precious long time about it--and the smell of the meat, and the thoughts
of the grog, and the feeling of being at home again, what did I do but
fall as fast asleep as the captain of the watch in a heavy gale of wind!
My back was to the light, so far as there was any, and to make sure of
the top of my head, I fetched down my hat--the soft-edged one, the same
as you see me wear on fine Sundays.

"Well, I may have gone on in that way for an hour, not snoring, as Mrs.
Stubbard calls it, but breathing to myself a little in my sleep, when I
seemed to hear somebody calling me, not properly, but as people do in
a dream--'Stoobar--Stoobar--Stoobar,' was the sound in my ears, like my
conscience hauling me over the coals in bad English. This made me wake
up, for I always have it out with that part of me when it mutinies; but
I did not move more than to feel for my glass. And then I perceived that
it was nothing more or less than a pair of Frenchmen talking about me
in the berth next to mine, within the length of a marlin-spike from my
blessed surviving ear.

"Some wiseacre says that listeners never hear good of themselves, and
upon my word he was right enough this time, so far as I made out. The
French language is beyond me, so far as speaking goes, for I never can
lay hold of the word I want; but I can make out most of what those queer
people say, from being a prisoner among them once, and twice in command
of a prize crew over the