ormed my duties, leaving the
other matter to time. As it happened, my fidelity to Mr. Benbow was
shown very clearly before long.

'Twould be a dull story to relate the trivial incidents of my first
year of service in the navy. I spent five months at sea, and seven
on shore, and Captain Vincent being a martinet. I had to work hard
for my pay of four shillings a day (on shore it was cut down to two
shillings). My diligence in studying navigation pleased him; and
when a little affair in which I had been concerned came to his
ears, he took me, in a sense, to his heart.

I had gone one day with Lieutenant Venables, of our ship, into a
coffee house in Portsmouth, whither the officers of the fleet much
resorted. The first man I set eyes on was Dick Cludde, who was, as
I learned afterwards, a lieutenant of the Defiance, which had
lately come into port. With him was his captain ('twas the Captain
Kirkby I had seen in the inn at Harley), also Captain Cooper Wade,
of the Greenwich, Captain Hudson of the Pendennis, and a number of
junior officers.

Cludde greeted me with a puzzled stare; 'twas clear he had not
heard of the change in my fortunes, and maybe believed me to be
still scouring the cook's slush pans aboard the Dolphin privateer.
I saw him turn to Lieutenant Simpson, of the Pendennis, who knew
me, and guessed by the quick glance Simpson gave me that Cludde had
asked him concerning my appearance there.

Venables and I sat down to our coffee, and 'twas not long before we
knew, by the loud voices of the others, that they had laced theirs
with rum, or maybe were pretty well filled with wine to begin with.
And, as it always happened when officers of the fleet met together,
they were soon hot upon the subject of Mr. Benbow, his rough
manners, his rustic speech, and his outrageous lack of respect for
his betters. After a little of this talk Venables says to me:

"Come, Bold, we are better away from this."

"You are right," says I, and we both rose and put on our hats.

Cludde saw the action, and, taking courage I suppose from the
presence of his boon fellows, he said, in a tone loud enough to
reach my ears:

"That's one of his doings. Simpson tells me that that fellow is a
lieutenant on the Falmouth, through Benbow's interest; he comes
from my town Shrewsbury, and a year or two ago was a charity brat,
with scarce a coat to his back."

At this I swung round and took a pace or two towards the table
where Cludde was sea