He bowed with wide hands. Drunk as he was there was yet a dilapidated splendour about the fellow as about an historic ruin. The boy felt it through his disgust.
"I thought Nelson did a bit," he said.
"Nelson did much; I did more; e did most," with a wave forward. "Why!" shouting now. "Who was it led the line inside the shoal—creepin it, leadsman in the chains, soundin all the way?—We Thunderers, the Goliath treadin mighty jealous on our heels. And who commanded the Thunderer?—Old Ding-dong. And what did he get for it?"
He smacked a hand down on the boy's shoulder.
"Broke him, sir!—broke him back to a sloop o war!—old Ding-dong, the damdest, darndest, don't-care-a-cursest old sea-dog as ever set his teeth in a French line o battle ship, and wouldn't let go, though they fired double-shotted broadsides down his throat."
"But why did they break him?" gasped the boy. "It doesn't sound like
Nelson."
The other smacked his long nose with a finger mysteriously.
"I don't know what you mean," said the boy, short and sharp.
"Ah, and just as well you don't," replied the other loftily. "Some day, Sonny, you'll know all there is to know and a leetle bit more—same as me. Plenty time first though. If you've done suckin it's more'n you look."
He began to march again.