“That’s the man.”
Rhoda cast a triumphant glance at James who had joined them, and the lad flushed angrily. “Is that really true, or is it only a report?” he asked his uncle.
“Too true,” he answered; “but,” laying his hand on the boy’s shoulder, “we shall have need of you yet, Jamie. We are disgusted, but not defeated, for another Hull has given us a glorious victory on the sea to offset our defeat on land.”
“What’s that, sir? We haven’t heard the news yet.”
“You might have heard it fast enough, if you had been a little nearer to Baltimore, for they fired salutes in honor of the news, and every ship in the harbor ran up her flag. Captain Isaac Hull has taken the Guerrière as a prize into Boston, and the whole country is jubilant.”
“The Guerrière? Dacres’s ship? Then Hull has won his hat,” James cried. “Hurrah for Hull and the old Constitution!”
“What’s that about a hat?” Lettice asked.
“Why, Dacres and Hull laid a wager of a hat, each declaring that he would whip the other if they ever met on the high seas, and old Hull has won.” And James struck up a song written by Mr. Francis Hopkinson and called “The Favorite New Federal Song,” although we know it now as “Hail Columbia.”
“And you, sir?” said Lettice to Mr. Clinton, who, with a devilled crab in one hand and a sandwich in the other, was about to throw himself at her feet. “You, Mr. Clinton, what do you think of this war question?”
“It’s all nonsense!” he exclaimed with an amused glance at her. “Surely, Miss Lettice, a pretty girl doesn’t need to bother her head about loans, taxes, navies, and war news.”