"'Sick of a calm,' eh?--Like your friend Mistress Tearsheet," said the
youngster. "But I've settled it all, and count on you. Look here," he
continued, drawing from his pocket a large printed bill, and unfolding
it before my ancestor. At the top appeared in large capitals the
words, "Plaza de Toros;" and underneath was a woodcut representing a
bull, gazing, with his tail in the air, and an approving smile on his
countenance, on the matadore about to transfix him. Then followed a
glowing account in Spanish of the delights of a great bull-fight
shortly to take place at Cadiz, setting forth the ferocity of the
bulls, the number of horses that might be expected to die in the
arena, and the fame of the picadores and espadas who were then and
there to exhibit.

The Major shook his head--the captivating prospectus had no charms for
him: he had not, as I have before said, an inquiring mind, and habit
was so strong in him, that a change was like the dislocation of a
joint. The Ensign proceeded to paint the delights of the excursion in
the brightest colours he could command. They were to go to Cadiz in a
boat which he had lately bought; she was a capital sailer--there was a
half-deck forward, under which the Major might sleep as comfortably as
in his own bed--a cooking apparatus (and here, as he expatiated on the
grills and stews and devils that were to be cooked and eaten, with the
additional stimulus to appetite afforded by sea air, there was a spark
of relenting in my grandfather's eye). "You shall return," said the
tempter, "with a digestion so completely renovated, that my name
shall rise to your tongue at each meal as a grace before meat, and a
thanksgiving after it; and as to sea-sickness, why, this Levanter
will take us there in twelve hours, so smoothly that you may balance
a straw upon your nose the whole way." Finally, the cunning Ensign
laid before him an application for leave already made out, and only
awaiting his signature.

My grandfather made some feeble objections, which Owen pooh-poohed in
his usual off-hand fashion. There was no standing against the
youngster's strong will, and at five o'clock that same evening the
Major found himself proceeding through the town towards the Waterport
for embarkation, by no means fully reconciled to the abandonment of
his beloved Lares. My luckless grandfather! did no presentiment warn
you of a consequence then hanging in the clouds, that was to change
utterly for you the