"Not another syllable is necessary. I know what you mean as well as if I said it myself, and, moreover, short sermons are always the best. You mean that a pilot ought to know where he is steering, which is perfectly sound doctrine. My own experience tells me, that if you press a sturgeon's nose with your foot, it will spring up as soon as it is loosened. Now the jack-screw will heave a great strain, no doubt; but the moment it is let up, down comes all that rests on it, again. This Mr. Dodge, I suppose you know, has been a passenger with me once or twice?"
"I have heard as much--they say he was tigerish in the fight with the niggers--quite an out-and-outer."
"Ay, I hear he tells some such story himself; but harkee, commodore, I wish to do justice to all men, and I find there is very little of it inland, hereaway. The hero of that day is about to marry your beautiful Miss Effingham; other men did their duty too, as, for instance, was the case with Mr. John Effingham; but Paul Blunt-Powis-Effingham finished the job. As for Mr. Steadfast Dodge, sir, I say nothing, unless it be to add that he was nowhere near me in that transaction; and if any man felt like an alligator in Lent, on that occasion, it was your humble servant."
"Which means that he was not nigh the enemy, I'll swear before a magistrate."
"And no fear of perjury. Any one who saw Mr. John Effingham and Mr. Powis on that day, might have sworn that they were father and son, and any one who did not see Mr. Dodge might have said at once, that he did not belong to their family. That is all, sir; I never disparage a passenger, and, therefore, shall say no more than merely to add, that Mr. Dodge is no warrior."
"They say he has experienced religion, lately, as they call it."
"It is high time, sir, for he had experienced sin quite long enough, according to my notion. I hear that the man goes up and down the country disparaging those whose shoe-ties he is unworthy to unloose, and that he has published some letters in his journal, that are as false as his heart; but let him beware, lest the world should see, some rainy day, an extract from a certain log-book belonging to a ship called the Montauk. I am rejoiced at this marriage after all, commodore, or marriages rather, for I understand that Mr. Paul Effingham and Sir George Templemore intend to make a double bowline of it to-morrow morning. All is arranged, and as soon as my eyes have witnessed that blessed sight, I shall trip for New-York again."
"It is clearly made out then, that the young gentleman is Mr. John Effingham's son?"
"As clear as the north-star in a bright night. The fellow who spoke to me at the Fun of Fire has put us in a way to remove the last doubt, if there were any doubt. Mr. Effingham himself, who is so cool-headed and cautious, says there is now sufficient proof to make it good in any court in America, That point may be set down as settled, and, for my part, I rejoice it is so, since Mr. John Effingham has so long passed for an old bachelor, that it is a credit to the corps to find one of them the father of so noble a son."
Here the commodore dropped his anchor, and the two friends began to fish. For an hour neither talked much, but having obtained the necessary stock of perch, they landed at the favourite spring, and prepared a fry. While seated on the grass, alternating be tween the potations of punch, and the mastication of fish, these worthies again renewed the dialogue in their usual discursive, philosophical, and sentimental manner.