e pleasant than to thus
be overhauled, and he made a most awkward flourish by way of a bow
when we were come into position.

Jim Freeman passed a hawser, and when it was made fast a midshipman,
who acted as if he owned the whole of Chesapeake Bay, came aboard with
two marines.

The little whipper-snapper poked his nose into the cuddy, and
pretended to be nearly overcome by the odor of the place, therefore he
sent the marines below to overturn everything in the bunks, as if
believing we had somebody hidden there.

The soldiers came up with our three old muskets, and the little
whifflet demanded in a tone of authority to be told why we went so
well armed.

"We carry 'em, sir, so's we can get a mess of ducks now an' then,"
Darius replied as respectfully as if he had been speaking to the king.
"They ain't any great shakes of guns, seein's how all of 'em are
rusted pretty bad; but we oystermen can't afford anythin' better."

One would have thought the little ape had found three or four
thirty-two pounders, by the way he passed them up over the rail for
the inspection of the officers on the quarter-deck, and then he
turned his attention to the hold.

I heard the gentlemen laughing as they looked at our weapons, and in a
twinkling the pieces were thrown down on the deck with so little care
that the hammer of one was broken off short to the lock, but those who
served the king had little care how they destroyed the property of
those whose crime consisted in being born Americans.

The midshipman got one whiff from the hold, which I'm free to admit
wasn't pleasing, and the soldiers were sent below while he stood with
a handkerchief decked out with lace held to his nose, as if in danger
of fainting.

As a matter of course nothing was found below, save a lot of mud and
some oyster shells. A blind man might have seen that so far as the
vessel was concerned she could be nothing more than an honest
oysterman; but the whifflet forced the marines to search over every
portion of the hold, and while this was being done one of the officers
asked how many bushels we sold to those of the Narcissus.

Darius replied to the question, speaking as nearly unlike a sailor as
possible, and not until he had stated the price, showing British
silver as proof of the amount received, was the curiosity of the
gentleman satisfied.

Then the midshipman clambered over the side of the ship to make his
report, and the moment had come when if any o