ver wore swords."

"Mr Simple, a boatswain is an officer, and is entitled to a sword as
well as the captain, although we have been laughed out of it by a set of
midshipman monkeys. I always wore my sword at that time; but
now-a-days, a boatswain is counted as nobody, unless there is hard work
to do, and then it's Mr Chucks this, and Mr Chucks that. But I'll
explain to you how it is, Mr Simple, that we boatswains have lost so
much of consequence and dignity. The first lieutenants are made to do
the boatswains' duty now-a-days, and if they could only wind the call,
they might scratch the boatswain's name off half the ships' books in His
Majesty's service. But to go on with my yarn. On the fourth day, I
called with my handkerchief full of cigars for the father, but he was at
siesta, as they called it. The old serving-woman would not let me in at
first: but I shoved a dollar between her skinny old fingers, and that
altered her note. She put her old head out, and looked round to see if
there was anybody in the street to watch us, and then she let me in and
shut the door. I walked into the room, and found myself alone with
Seraphina."

"Seraphina!--what a fine name!"

"No name can be too fine for a pretty girl or a good frigate, Mr
Simple. I was three hours with Seraphina before her father came home,
and during that time I never was quietly at an anchor for above a
minute. I was on my knees, vowing and swearing, kissing her feet, and
kissing her hand, till at last I got to her lips, working my way up as
regularly as one who gets in at the hawsehole and crawls aft to the
cabin windows. She was very kind, and she smiled, and sighed, and
pushed me off, and squeezed my hand, and was angry--frowning till I was
in despair, and then making me happy again with her melting dark eyes
beaming kindly, till at last she said that she would try to love me, and
asked me whether I would marry her and live in Spain. I replied that I
would; and, indeed, I felt as if I could, only at the time the thought
occurred to me where the rhino was to come from, for I could not live,
as her father did, upon a paper cigar and a piece of melon per day. At
all events, as far as words went, it was a settled thing. When her
father came home, the old servant told him that I had just at that
moment arrived, and that his daughter was in her own room; so she was,
for she ran away as soon as she heard her father knock. I made my bow
to the old gen