this sort of
occasion, unless I be far mistaken in my man."

"But," said Winterblossom, "although I comply with your wishes thus far,
Captain MacTurk, I by no means undertake for certain to back this same
Master Tyrrel, of whom I know nothing at all, but only agree to go to
the place in hopes of preventing mischief."

"Never fash your beard about that, Mr. Winterblossom," replied the
Captain; "for a little mischief, as you call it, is become a thing
absolutely necessary to the credit of the place; and I am sure, whatever
be the consequences, they cannot in the present instance be very fatal
to any body; for here is a young fellow that, if he should have a
misfortune, nobody will miss, for nobody knows him; then there is Sir
Bingo, whom every body knows so well, that they will miss him all the
less."

"And there will be Lady Bingo, a wealthy and handsome young widow," said
Winterblossom, throwing his hat upon his head with the grace and
pretension of former days, and sighing to see, as he looked in the
mirror, how much time, that had whitened his hair, rounded his stomach,
wrinkled his brow, and bent down his shoulders, had disqualified him, as
he expressed it, "for entering for such a plate."

Secure of Winterblossom, the Captain's next anxiety was to obtain the
presence of Dr. Quackleben, who, although he wrote himself M.D., did not
by any means decline practice as a surgeon, when any job offered for
which he was likely to be well paid, as was warranted in the present
instance, the wealthy baronet being a party principally concerned. The
Doctor, therefore, like the eagle scenting the carnage, seized, at the
first word, the huge volume of morocco leather which formed his case of
portable instruments, and uncoiled before the Captain, with ostentatious
display, its formidable and glittering contents, upon which he began to
lecture as upon a copious and interesting text, until the man of war
thought it necessary to give him a word of caution.

"Och," says he, "I do pray you, Doctor, to carry that packet of yours
under the breast of your coat, or in your pocket, or somewhere out of
sight, and by no means to produce or open it before the parties. For
although scalpels, and tourniquets, and pincers, and the like, are very
ingenious implements, and pretty to behold, and are also useful when
time and occasion call for them, yet I have known the sight of them take
away a man's fighting stomach, and so lose their owner a jo