e at the
exchange."

"How so, Mr Chucks--what do you mean?"

"Why, Mr Simple, the captain did not make an honest woman of her, as I
would have done; and the father discovered what was going on, and one
night the captain was brought on board run through the body. We sailed
immediately for Gibraltar, and it was a long while before he got round
again: and then he had another misfortune."

"What was that?"

"Why he lost his boatswain, Mr Simple; for I could not bear the sight of
him--and then he lost (as you must know, not from your own knowledge,
but from that of others) a boatswain who knows his duty."

"Every one says so, Mr Chucks. I'm sure that our captain would be very
sorry to part with you."

"I trust that every captain has been with whom I've sailed, Mr Simple.
But that was not all he lost, Mr Simple; for the next cruise he lost his
masts; and the loss of his masts occasioned the loss of his ship, since
which he has never been trusted with another, but is laid on the shelf.
Now he never carried away a spar of any consequence during the whole
time that I was with him. A mast itself is nothing, Mr Simple--only a
piece of wood--but fit your rigging properly, and then a mast is strong
as a rock. Only ask Mr Faulkner, and he'll tell you the same; and I
never met an officer who knew better how to support a mast."

"Did you ever hear any more of the young lady?"

"Yes; about a year afterwards I returned there in another ship. She had
been shut up in a convent, and forced to take the veil. Oh, Mr Simple!
if you knew how I loved that girl! I have never been more than polite to
a woman since, and shall die a bachelor. You can't think how I was
capsized the other day, when I looked at the house; I have hardly
touched beef or pork since, and am in debt two quarts of rum more than
my allowance. But, Mr Simple, I have told you this in confidence, and I
trust you are too much of a gentleman to repeat it; for I cannot bear
quizzing from young midshipmen."

I promised that I would not mention it, and I kept my word; but
circumstances which the reader will learn in the sequel have freed me
from the condition. Nobody can quiz him now.

We gained our station off the coast of Perpignan; and as soon as we made
the land, we were most provokingly driven off by a severe gale. I am not
about to make any remarks about the gale, for one storm is so like
another; but I mention it, to account for a conversation which took
place, an