at gentleman: he has made
himself very useful, and behaved very well."

"Really, Massa Courtenay, I tought I not give you satisfaction."

"Why so, Billy?"

"Because, sar, you never give me present--not one dollar."

"He has you there," said Price; "you must fork out."

"Not a rap--the nigger had perquisites. I saw the English merchants
give him a handful of dollars, before they left the vessel."

"Ah! they real gentlemen, Massa Capon and Massa --- dam um name--I
forgot."

"And what am I, then, you black thief?"

"Oh! you, sar, you very fine officer," replied Billy, quitting the
gun-room.

Courtenay did not exactly like the answer--but there was nothing to lay
hold of. As usual, when displeased, he referred to his snuff-box,
muttering something, in which the word "annoying" could only be
distinguished.

The breeze from the windsail blew some of the snuff out of the box into
the eyes of Macallan.

"I wish to Heaven you would be more careful, Courtenay," cried the
surgeon, in an angry tone, and stamping with the pain.

"I really beg your pardon," replied Courtenay, "snuffing's a vile
habit,--I wish I could leave it off."

"So do your messmates," replied the surgeon: "I cannot imagine what
pleasure there can be in a practice in itself so nasty, independent of
the destruction of the olfactory powers."

"It's exactly for that reason that I take snuff; I am convinced that I
am a gainer by the loss of the power of smell."

"I consider it ungrateful, if not wicked, to say so," replied the
surgeon, gravely. "The senses were given to us as a source of
enjoyment."

"True, doctor," answered Courtenay, mimicking the language of Macallan;
"and if I were a savage in the woods, there could not be a sense more
valuable, or affording so much gratification, as the one in question. I
should rise with the sun, and inhale the fragrance of the shrubs and
flowers, offered up in grateful incense to their Creator, and I should
stretch myself under the branches of the forest tree, as evening closed,
and enjoy the faint perfume with which they wooed the descending
moisture after exhaustion from the solar heat. But in civilised
society, where men and things are packed too closely together, the case
is widely different: for one pleasant, you encounter twenty offensive
smells; and of all the localities for villainous compounds, a ship is
indubitably the worst. I therefore patronise `'baccy,' which, I
presume, was intended f