ght her commander
a fair share of his credit, by her energy in bringing to an incredible
number of those d----d French sharks--beg pardon, but you know the
pestilent breed. Well, we shall never agree upon the subject I fear.
As for me, the smart of the salt air, the sting of the salt breeze,
the fighting, the danger, they have got into my blood; and even now it
sometimes comes over me that life will not be perfect life to me
without the dancing boards under my feet and the free waves around me,
and my jolly boys to lead to death or glory. Yet, could you but know
it, this is the veriest treason, and I revoke the words a thousand
times. You look amazed, and well you may: ah, I have much to tell you!
But I take it you will not care to hear all I have been able to
achieve on the basis of your munificent help at my--ahem, unworthy
trade."

"Well, no," said Sir Adrian smiling, "I can quite imagine it, and
imagine it without enthusiasm, though, perhaps, as you say, such
things have to be. But I should like to know of these present
circumstances, these prospects which make you look so happy. No doubt
the fruits of peace?"

"Yes, I suppose in one way they may be called so. Yet without the war
and your helping hand they would even now hang as far from me as the
grapes from the fox.--When I arrived in England three months after the
peace had been signed, I had accumulated in the books of certain banks
a tolerably respectable account, to the credit of a certain person,
whose name, oddly enough, you on one or two occasions have applied,
absently, to Captain Jack Smith. I was, I will own, already feeling
inclined to discuss with myself the propriety of assuming the name in
question, when, there came something in my way of which I shall tell
you presently; which something has made me resolve to remain Captain
Smith for some time longer. The old _Cormorant_ lay at Bristol, and
being too big for this new purpose, I sold her. It was like cutting
off a limb. I loved every plank of her; knew every frisk of her! She
served me well to the end, for she fetched her value--almost. Next,
having time on my hands, I bethought myself of seeing again a little
of the world; and when I tell you that I drove over to Bath, you may
perhaps begin to see what I am coming to."

Sir Adrian suddenly turned in his chair to face his friend again, with
a look of singular attention.

"Well, no, not exactly, and yet--unless--? Pshaw! impossible----!"
upon wh