uld prevail upon him to undergo the
operation. Yet this task was easy, in comparison with another she
undertook for the gratification of Mrs. Pickle's unaccountable desire;
which was no other than to persuade the commodore to submit his chin
to the mercy of the big-bellied lady, who ardently wished for an
opportunity of plucking three black hairs from his beard. When this
proposal was first communicated to Mr. Trunnion by the husband, his
answer was nothing but a dreadful effusion of oaths, accompanied with
such a stare, and delivered in such a tone of voice, as terrified the
poor beseecher into immediate silence; so that Mrs. Grizzle was fain
to take the whole enterprise upon herself, and next day went to the
garrison accordingly, where, having obtained entrance by means of the
lieutenant, who, while his commander was asleep, ordered her to be
admitted for the joke's sake, she waited patiently till he turned out,
and then accosted him in the yard, where he used to perform his morning
walk. He was thunderstruck at the appearance of a woman in a place he
had hitherto kept sacred from the whole sex, and immediately began to
utter an apostrophe to Tom Pipes, whose turn it was then to watch; when
Mrs. Grizzle, falling on her knees before him, conjured him, with many
pathetic supplications, to hear and grant her request, which was no
sooner signified, than he bellowed in such an outrageous manner that the
whole court re-echoed the opprobrious term b--, and the word damnation,
which he repeated with surprising volubility, without any sort of
propriety or connection; and retreated into his penetralia, leaving the
baffled devotee in the humble posture she had so unsuccessfully chosen
to melt his obdurate heart.

Mortifying as this repulse must have been to a lady of her stately
disposition, she did not relinquish her aim, but endeavoured to interest
the commodore's counsellors and adherents in her cause. With this view
she solicited the interest of Mr. Hatchway, who, being highly pleased
with a circumstance so productive of mirth and diversion, readily
entered into her measures, and promised to employ his whole influence
for her satisfaction; and as for the boatswain's mate, he was rendered
propitious by the present of a guinea, which she slipped into his hand.
In short, Mrs. Grizzle was continually engaged in this negotiation for
the space of ten days, during which, the commodore was so incessantly
pestered with her remonstran