er imagined a sweeter schooner--a child might sail her--two
hundred tons; name, _Hispaniola_.

"I got her through my old friend, Blandly, who has proved himself
throughout the most surprising trump. The admirable fellow literally
slaved in my interest, and so, I may say, did every one in Bristol,
as soon as they got wind of the port we sailed for--treasure, I
mean."

"Redruth," said I, interrupting the letter, "Doctor Livesey will not
like that. The squire has been talking, after all."

"Well, who's a better right?" growled the gamekeeper. "A pretty rum go
if Squire ain't to talk for Doctor Livesey, I should think."

At that I gave up all attempt at commentary, and read straight on:

"Blandly himself found the _Hispaniola_, and by the most admirable
management got her for the merest trifle. There is a class of men in
Bristol monstrously prejudiced against Blandly. They go the length
of declaring that this honest creature would do anything for money;
that the _Hispaniola_ belonged to him, and that he sold to me
absurdly high--the most transparent calumnies. None of them dare,
however, to deny the merits of the ship.

"So far there was not a hitch. The workpeople, to be sure--riggers
and what not--were most annoyingly slow, but time cured that. It was
the crew that troubled me.

"I wished a round score of men--in case of natives, buccaneers, or
the odious French--and I had the worry of the deuce itself to find
so much as half a dozen, till the most remarkable stroke of fortune
brought me the very man that I required.

"I was standing on the dock, when, by the merest accident, I fell in
talk with him. I found he was an old sailor, kept a public house,
knew all the seafaring men in Bristol, had lost his health ashore,
and wanted a good berth as cook to get to sea again. He had hobbled
down there that morning, he said, to get a smell of the salt.

"I was monstrously touched--so would you have been--and, out of pure
pity, I engaged him on the spot to be ship's cook. Long John Silver
he is called, and has lost a leg; but that I regarded as a
recommendation, since he lost it in his country's service, under the
immortal Hawke. He has no pension, Livesey. Imagine the abominable
age we live in!

"Well, sir, I thought I had only found a cook, but it was a crew I
had discovered. Between Silve