imal, you must put your finger into the frying-pan, must you? There,
now you've got it." So saying, she put down the frying-pan, and
commenced singing as loud as she could, "Hush-a-by, baby, Pussy's a
lady." "Ay, now you're vexed, I dare say," continued she, as she walked
into the back kitchen.

All this time my father had been at the door looking on, which she had
not perceived. My father then came in. "What's your name, my lad?" said
he.

"Tommy Saunders," replied I, rubbing myself; for the frying-pan was very
hot, and my trousers very much out of repair.

"And who is that little girl?" said he.

"That's my sister Virginia--but," continued I, "who are you? Do you want
my mother?"

"Not very particularly just now," said my father, taking up my sister
and kissing her, and then patting me on the head.

"Do you want any beer or 'baccy?" said I. "I'll run and get you some, if
you give me the money, and bring back your change all right."

"Well, so you shall, Jack, my boy," replied he; and he gave me a
shilling. I soon returned with the pipes, tobacco, and beer, and offered
him the change, which he told me to keep, to buy apples with. Virginia
was on the knee of my father, who was coaxing and caressing her, and my
mother had not yet returned from the back kitchen. I felt naturally
quite friendly toward a man who had given me more money than I ever
possessed in my life; and I took my stool and sat beside him; while,
with my sister on his knee, and his porter before him, my father smoked
his pipe.

"Does your mother often beat you, Jack?" said my father, taking the pipe
out of his mouth.

"Yes, when I does wrong," replied I.

"Oh! only when you do wrong--eh?"

"Well, she says I do wrong; so I suppose I do."

"You're a good boy," replied my father. "Does she ever beat you, dear?"
said he to Virginia.

"Oh, no!" interrupted I; "she never beats sister, she loves her too
much; but she don't love me."

My father puffed away, and said no more.

I must inform the reader that my father's person was very much altered
from what I have described it to have been at the commencement of this
narrative. He was now a boatswain's mate, and wore a silver whistle hung
round his neck by a lanyard, and with which little Virginia was then
playing. He had grown more burly in appearance, spreading, as sailors
usually do, when they arrive to about the age of forty; and, moreover,
he had a dreadful scar from a cutlass wound, receiv