"How much train-oil does she drink in the course of a day?" said another.
"Or how much raw shark serves her for a meal?" asked a third.
"Does she wear a spritsail-yard through the gristle of her nose?" said a fourth.
"Or a brass ring in her under lip?" said a fifth.
"Is she tattooed on both cheeks, or only on one?" said a sixth.
Such was the peculiar style of banter to which he was sure to be subjected, whenever he went into company; and in a short time he abstained from visits, and devoted his time to perfecting himself in his nautical studies, and making diligent inquiries after vessels bound round Cape Horn. If ever you noticed it, madam, a man in love does not relish jokes at the expense of his idol. "Ne lude cum sacris," ecclesiastically rendered, signifies, do not make fun of the clergy; but among lovers it means, do not speak of my love with levity or contempt. I remember when I was in love for the third or fourth time—I was then studying trigonometry and navigation—my passion being unable to expend itself in sonnets to my mistress's eyebrow, I gave way to geometrical flights of fancy, and took the altitude of every apple-tree and well-pole in the neighborhood, and made my advances to her upon the principles of traverse sailing.
Nor was old Mr. Morton unconscious of the great alteration in his son's behaviour while at home, so unlike any thing he had ever observed before in him, and he saw the change with no small pain.
"The poor boy cannot have fallen in love," said the senior to himself; "there is nothing more amiable than a copper-colored squaw, beyond Cape Horn."
One Saturday evening, the old man, being comfortably installed in his leather-cushioned arm-chair, with his pipe and pitcher of cider (for merchants, forty years since, drank cider at a dollar the barrel, instead of London particular Madeira at five dollars the gallon, and the consequences were—no matter what), commenced the conversation:
"Ahem! well, Charles, my son, do you intend going to sea again, or would you prefer commencing business ashore? You are now at the age when most young men think of settling down for life. Let's see—you are five-and-twenty, are you not?"