fairly and
candidly stated to my parents that my stock of clothes were insufficient
for my appearance as a gentleman on the quarter-deck, that they would
cheerfully have increased it to any reasonable extent. But I had been
taught artifice and cunning; I could tell the truth where I thought it
served my purpose, as well as a lie; but here I thought deception was a
proof at once of spirit and of merit; and I resolved to practise it, if
only to raise myself a trifling degree in the estimation of my unworthy
associates. I had become partial to deception from habit, and preferred
exercising my own ingenuity in outwitting my father, to obtain what I
needed by more straightforward and honourable measures.

The ship needed some repairs, and by the indulgence of the captain, who
was pleased with my conduct, I, who required so much instruction in the
nature and cause of her defects, was allowed to be absent while they
were made good. By this oversight, I lost all that improvement which I
should have gained by close attention to the unrigging or shipping of
the ship; the manner of returning her stores; taking out her masts and
ballast, and seeing her taken into dock; the shape of her bottom, and
the good or bad qualities which might be supposed to accelerate or
retard her movements. All this was sacrificed to the impatience of
seeing my parents; to the vain glory of boasting of the action in which
I had been present; and, perhaps, of being encouraged to tell lies of
things which I never saw, and to talk of feats which I never performed.
I loved effect; and I timed the moment of my return to my father's house
(through a correspondence with my sister) to be just as a large party
had sat down to a sumptuous dinner. I had only been absent three
months, it is true; but it was my first cruise, and then "I had seen so
much, and been in such very interesting situations."

CHAPTER FOUR.

'Twill be time to go home. What shall I say I have done? It must be
a very plausive invention that carries it. I find my tongue is too
fool-hardy. SHAKESPEARE.

Reaching the well-known mansion of my father, I knocked softly at the
front door, was admitted, and without saying a word to the servant,
rushed to the head of the dining-room table, and threw my arms round my
mother's neck, who only screamed, "Good heavens, my child!" and fell
into hysterics. My father, who was in the very midst of helping his
soup, jumped up to embrace m