with
the scene and hour.

"Why, father," he resumed after a brief pause, "you are so sternly
practical that you drive all the sentiment out of a fellow. I had almost
risen to the regions of poetry just now, under the pleasant influences
of nature."

"Glad I got hold of 'ee, lad, before you rose," growled the captain of
the brig--for such the short man was. "When a young fellow like you gets
up into the clouds o' poetry, he's like a man in a balloon--scarce knows
how he got there; doesn't know very well how he's to get down, an' has
no more idea where he's goin' to, or what he's drivin' at, than the man
in the moon. Take my advice, lad, an' get out o' poetical regions as
fast as ye can. It don't suit a young fellow who has got to do duty as
first mate of his father's brig and push his way in the world as a
seaman. When I sent you to school an' made you a far better scholar than
myself, I had no notion they was goin' to teach you poetry."

The captain delivered the last word with an emphasis which was meant to
convey the idea of profound but not ill-natured scorn.

"Why, father," returned the young man, in a tone which plainly told of a
gleeful laugh within him, which was as yet restrained, "it was not
school that put poetry into me--if indeed there be any in me at all."

"What was it, then?"

"It was mother," returned the youth, promptly, "and surely you don't
object to poetry in _her_."

"Object!" cried the captain, as though speaking in the teeth of a
Nor'wester. "Of course not. But then, Nigel, poetry in your mother _is_
poetry, an' she can _do_ it, lad--screeds of it--equal to anything that
Dibdin, or, or,--that other fellow, you know, I forget his name--ever
put pen to--why, your mother is herself a poem! neatly made up, rounded
off at the corners, French-polished and all shipshape. Ha! you needn't
go an' shelter yourself under _her_ wings, wi' your inflated, up in the
clouds, reef-point-patterin', balloon-like nonsense."

"Well, well, father, don't get so hot about it; I won't offend again.
Besides, I'm quite content to take a very low place so long as you give
mother her right position. We won't disagree about that, but I suspect
that we differ considerably about the other matter you mentioned."

"What other matter?" demanded the sire.

"My doing duty as first mate," answered the son. "It must be quite
evident to you by this time, I should think, that I am not cut out for a
sailor. After all your troub