“Sarvice to you,” said Ben, nodding to my father. “Tommy, get me a pipe of ’baccy.”
“Here’s pipe and ’baccy too, messmate,” replied my father. “Sit down, and make yourself comfortable, old chap.”
“Won’t refuse a good offer,” replied Ben, “been too long in the sarvice for that—and you’ve seen sarvice too, I think,” continued Ben, looking my father full in the face.
“Chop from a French officer,” replied my father; after a pause, he added, “but he didn’t live to tell of it.”
Ben took one of the offered pipes, filled, and was soon very busy puffing away, alongside of my father.
Chapter Five.
My father and mother meet after an absence of six years. She discovers that he is no longer a Coxswain but a Boatswain’s Mate.
While my father and Ben are thus engaged, I will give the reader a description of the latter.