It was arranged
to our mutual satisfaction that Margaret and I should permanently take
up our abode with our relatives. They had a couple of spare rooms,
which they had at times let to lodgers, so that we in no way incommoded
them.

Never was there a more happy family party. We were not over-refined; we
did not set up for people of that sort, it must be remembered, or call
ourselves gentlemen and ladies. Nor did our guests. They were,
however, always well-behaved, civil people, who would on no account have
committed any real solecism in good manners.

Old Jerry Vincent used to look in, as before, very frequently, with a
budget of his funny stories, to which other neighbours gladly came to
listen. There was invariably much laughter, and no small amount of tea
and tobacco consumed, not to speak occasionally of some more potent
compound; but my uncle took good care that none of his guests should
pass the limits of sobriety, though he had at times some little
difficulty in keeping old Jerry in order. I should remark that old
Jerry was an exception to the general character of our guests, who were
as a rule of a much higher rank in the social scale. I remember
especially one of the old man's stories which is worth recording.

"You must know, mates," said he, "once upon a time I belonged to a brig
of war on the Newfoundland station. It isn't just the place, in my
opinion, that a man would wish to spend his life in. Too much frost and
fog, and wind and rain, to be pleasant. But bad as it was, I thought
there was a worse place to be in, and that was aboard my own ship. We
never know when we are well off. I don't think I was right, do ye see;
but rather, I am very well convinced, that I was a fool. Young men
sometimes don't find that out till it's too late. Howsomedever, I found
another fool as big as myself, which is never very difficult when you
look for him, and he and I agreed to run from the ship. Now, before I
go on with my story, I'll just ask one or two of you young men, have any
of you ever seen the biggest fool in the world? Well, I thought not;
you can't say that you have, and, what's more, you never will. If you
think that you have got hold of him, you may be sure that you'll fall in
with a bigger before long somewhere else. That is my philosophy, and I
am not far wrong, depend on it.

"Well, where was I? Oh, I know. My mate's name--t'other fool, I mean--
was Abraham Coxe. The ship had put i