by heavens!" and Mr Chucks slapped his fist
against the funnel, so as to make it ring again. "Well, Mr Simple,"
continued he, after a pause, "it is, however, a great comfort to me that
I have parted company with that fool, Mr Muddle, with his twenty-six
thousand and odd years, and that old woman, Dispart, the gunner. You
don't know how those two men used to fret me; it was very silly, but I
couldn't help it. Now the warrant officers of this ship appear to be
very respectable, quiet men, who know their duty and attend to it, and
are not too familiar, which I hate and detest. You went home to your
friends, of course, when you arrived in England?"

"I did, Mr Chucks, and spent some days with my grandfather, Lord
Privilege, whom you say you once met at dinner."

"Well, and how was the old gentleman?" inquired the boatswain, with a
sigh.

"Very well, considering his age."

"Now do, pray, Mr Simple, tell me all about it; from the time that the
servants met you at the door until you went away. Describe to me the
house and all the rooms, for I like to hear of all these things,
although I can never see them again."

To please Mr Chucks, I entered into a full detail, which he listened to
very attentively, until it was late, and then with difficulty would he
permit me to leave off, and go down to my hammock. The next day, rather
a singular circumstance occurred. One of the midshipmen was mast-headed
by the second lieutenant, for not waiting on deck until he was relieved.
He was down below when he was sent for, and expecting to be punished
from what the quarter-master told him, he thrust the first book into his
jacket-pocket which he could lay his hand on, to amuse himself at the
mast-head, and then ran on deck. As he surmised, he was immediately
ordered aloft. He had not been there more than five minutes, when a
sudden squall carried away the main-top-gallant mast, and away he went
flying over to leeward (for the wind had shifted, and the yards were now
braced up). Had he gone overboard, as he could not swim, he would, in
all probability, have been drowned; but the book in his pocket brought
him up in the jaws of the fore-brace block, where he hung until taken
out by the main-topmen. Now it so happened that it was a prayer-book
which he had laid hold of in his hurry, and those who were superstitious
declared it was all owing to his having taken a religious book with him.
I did not think so, as any other book would have answer