hat in your air which sufficiently proclaims the soldier,"
interrupted his listener, who evidently struggled to keep down his rising
impatience; "but, as my time is so precious, I would now more especially
hear what you have to say concerning yonder ship."

"Yes, sir, one gets a military look after seeing numberless wars; and so,
happily for the need of both, I have now come to the part of my secret
which touches more particularly on the character of that vessel. There sat
I, reflecting on the manner in which the strange seamen had been deluded
by my tonguey neighbour--for, as you should know, sir, a desperate talker
is that Tape, and a younker who has seen but one war at the
utmost--therefore, was I thinking of the manner in which he had enticed my
lawful customers from my shop, when, as one thought is the father of
another, the following concluding reasoning, as our pious priest has it
weekly in his reviving and searching discourses, came uppermost in my
mind: If these mariners were honest and conscientious slavers, would they
overlook a labouring man with a large family, to pour their well-earned
gold into the lap of a common babbler? I proclaimed to myself at once,
sir, that they would not. I was bold to say the same in my own mind, and,
thereupon, I openly put the question to all in hearing, If they are not
slavers, what are they? A question which the King himself would, in his
royal wisdom, allow to be a question easier asked than answered; upon
which I replied, If the vessel be no fair-trading slaver, nor a common
cruiser of his Majesty, it is as tangible as the best man's reasoning,
that she may be neither more nor less than the ship of that nefarious
pirate the Red Rover."

"The Red Rover!" exclaimed the stranger in green, with a start so natural
as to evidence that his dying interest in the tailor's narrative was
suddenly and powerfully revived. "That indeed would be a secret worth
having!--but why do you suppose the same?"

"For sundry reasons, which I am now about to name, in their respective
order. In the first place, she is an armed ship, sir. In the second, she
is no lawful cruiser, or the same would be publicly known, and by no one
sooner than myself, inasmuch as it is seldom that I do not finger a penny
from the King's ships. In the third place, the burglarious and unfeeling
conduct of the few seamen who have landed from her go to prove it; and,
lastly, what is well proved may be considered as substant