s blind eye. I advise you
to do the same and treat Mr. George as a chartered heart of oak,
without remembering his indiscretions to repeat them." She went on
to tell me that sailor-men were beloved in Plymouth and allowed to do
pretty well as they pleased; and how, quite recently, a Quaker lady
had been stopped in Bedford Street by a Jack Tar who said he had
sworn to kiss her. "Thee must be quick about it, then," said the
Quaker lady. And he was.

I suppose this anecdote encouraged me to be more familiar with Mr.
George. At any rate, I confided to him next day that I thought of
being a soldier.

"Do you know what we used to say in the Navy?" he answered. "We used
to say, 'A friend before a messmate, a messmate before a shipmate, a
shipmate before a dog, and a dog before a soldier.'"

"You think," said I, somewhat discouraged, "that the Navy would be a
better opening for me?"

"Ay," he answered again, eyeing me gloomily; "that is, if so be ye
can't contrive to get to jail." He cast a glance down upon his
jury-leg and patted the straps of it with his open palm. "The leg,
now, that used to be here--I left it in a French prison called Jivvy,
and often I thinks to myself, 'That there leg is having better luck
than the rest of me.' And here's another curious thing. What d'ye
think they call it in France when you remember a person in your
will?"

I hadn't a notion, and said so.

"Why, 'legs,'" said he. "And they've got one of mine. If a man was
superstitious, you might almost call it a coincidence, hey?"

This was the longest conversation I ever had with Mr. George. I have
since found that sentiments very like his about the Navy have been
uttered by Dr. Samuel Johnson. But Mr. George spoke them out of his
own experience.

Mr. Scougall's bride was the widow of a Plymouth publican who had
sold his business and retired upon a small farm across the Hamoaze,
near the Cornish village of Anthony. On the wedding morning (which
fell early in July) she had, by agreement with her groom, prepared a
delightful surprise for us. We trooped after prayers into the
dining-hall to find, in place of the hateful porridge, a feast laid
out--ham and eggs, cold veal pies, gooseberry preserves, and--best of
all--plate upon plate of strawberries with bowl upon bowl of cool
clotted cream. Not a child of us had ever tasted strawberries or
cream in his life, so you may guess if we ate with prudence.
At half-past ten Miss Pli