thing to be jealous, _'cause_ if there be _cause_, there be no
_cause_ for love and if there be no _cause_, there be no _cause_ for
jealousy."

"You're like a row in a rookery, father--nothing but _caws_,"
interrupted Tom.

"Well, I suppose I am; but that's what I call chop logic--aren't it,
master?"

"It was a syllogism," replied the Dominie, taking the pannikin from his
mouth.

"I don't know what that is, nor do I want to know," replied old Tom; "so
I'll just go on with my story. Well, at last they came to downright
fighting. Ben licks Poll 'cause she talked and laughed with other men,
and Poll cries and whines all day 'cause he won't sit on her knee,
instead of going on board and 'tending to his duty. Well, one night,
a'ter work was over, Ben goes on shore to the house where he and Poll
used to sleep; and when he sees the girl in the bar, he says, `Where is
Poll?' Now, the girl at the bar was a fresh-comer, and answers, `What
girl?' So Ben describes her, and the bar-girl answers, `She be just
gone to bed with her husband, I suppose;' for, you see, there was a
woman like her who had gone up to her bed, sure enough. When Ben heard
that, he gave his trousers one hitch, and calls for a quartern, drinks
it off with a sigh, and leaves the house, believing it all to be true.
A'ter Ben was gone, Poll makes her appearance, and when she finds Ben
wasn't in the tap, says, `Young woman, did a man go upstairs just now?'
`Yes,' replied the bar-girl, `with his wife, I suppose; they be turned
in this quarter of an hour.' When she almost turned mad with rage, and
then as white as a sheet, and then she burst into tears, and runs out of
the house, crying out, `Poor misfortunate creature that I am!' knocking
everything down undersized, and running into the arms of every man who
came athwart her hawse."

"I understood him, but just now, that she was running on foot; yet doth
he talk about her _horse_. Expound, Jacob."

"It was a nautical figure of speech, sir."

"Exactly," rejoined Tom; "it meant her figure-head, old gentleman; but
my yarn won't cut a figure if I'm brought up all standing in this way.
Suppose, master, you hear the story first, and understand it
a'terwards?"

"I will endeavour to comprehend by the context," replied the Dominie.

"That is, I suppose, that you'll allow me to stick to my text. Well,
then, here's coil away again. Ben, you see, what with his jealousy and
what with a whole quartern at a dr