"Avast, old boy!" returned the Old Sailor, laughing; "I've rigged out as many bumkins[6] as you have in my time."
"Ay, ay," drawled out the veteran—"hang me if I didn't think so by the cut of your jib—I thought it was all gammon, and you knowed better than to go sailing without wind."
"You have belonged to a man-of-war," said the Old Sailor, as we were standing off from the shore.
"Why, yes, I've had a spell at it," returned Hemptage somewhat knowingly, "I was in the owld Hyacinth with Tommy Ussher, and a better Captain never walked a ship's quarter-deck. I was with him too in the Ondaunted frigate up the Mediterranean——"
"What! were you in her, in Frejus Bay, when Buonaparte embarked for Elba?" inquired the Old Sailor.
"Why to be sure I was, and remembers it well enough," returned he with animation. "And the first thing Boney did when he got aboard was to come forud on to the foksle and have a yarn with the foksle men[7]."
"What sort of a man was he?" we asked with quickness.
"What sort of a man," reiterated the veteran, "why a stout good-looking chap enough, only very swarthy. Them images as the Italian boys brings about is very like, only I never seed him in that little cocked hat."
"Why what did he wear then?" inquired we with some eagerness.