e exhibited with
evident pride a pair of doeskins that buttoned over the calf to be worn
with high shoes, which I make sure he would have tried on likewise had he
been offered the slightest encouragement. So he exploited the whole of
his wardrobe, such an unlucky assortment of finery as I never wish to see
again; all of which, however, became him marvellously, though I think he
had looked well in anything. I hope I may be forgiven the perjury I did
that day. I wondered greatly that such a foible should crop out in a man
of otherwise sound sense and plain ability.

At length, when the last chest was shut again and locked, and I had
exhausted my ingenuity at commendation, and my patience also, he turned
to me as a man come out of a trance.

"Od's fish, Mr. Carvel," he cried, "you will be starved. I had forgot
your state."

I owned that hunger had nigh overcome me, whereupon he became very
solicitous, bade the boy bring in supper at once, and in a short time we
sat down together to the best meal I had seen for a month. It seemed
like a year. Porridge, and bacon nicely done, and duff and ale, with the
sea rushing past the cabin windows as we ate, touched into colour by the
setting sun. Captain Paul did not mess with his mates, not he, and he
gave me to understand that I was to share his cabin, apologizing
profusely for what he was pleased to call poor fare. He would have
it that he, and not I, were receiving favour.

"My dear sir," he said once, "you cannot know what a bit of finery is to
me, who has so little chance for the wearing of it. To discuss with a
gentleman, a connoisseur (I know a bit of French, Mr. Carvel), is a
pleasure I do not often come at."

His simplicity in this touched me; it was pathetic.

"How know you I am a gentleman, Captain Paul?" I asked curiously.

"I should lack discernment, sir," he retorted, with some heat, "if I
could not see as much. Breeding shines through sack-cloth, sir.
Besides," he continued, in a milder tone, "the look of you is candour
itself. Though I have not greatly the advantage of you in age, I have
seen many men, and I know that such a face as yours cannot lie."

Here Mr. Lowrie, the second mate, came in with a report; and I remarked
that he stood up hat in hand whilst making it, very much as if Captain
Paul commanded a frigate. The captain went to a locker and brought forth
some mellow Madeira, and after the mate had taken a glass of it standing,
he withdrew. Then we l