“Captain Wopper,” she suddenly exclaimed, looking up and drawing a note from her pocket, “do you know this?”
“Yes, duckie,” (the Captain was quite reckless now), “it’s my last billy-doo to Netta White. I never was good at pot-hooks and hangers.”
“And do you know this letter?” said Emma, holding up to the seaman’s eyes her uncle William’s last letter to herself.
The Captain looked surprised, then became suddenly red and confused.
“W’y—ye–es, it’s Willum’s, ain’t it?”
“The same pot-hooks and hangers precisely!” said Emma, “are they not? Oh!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms round the Captain’s neck and kissing him, “uncle William, how could you deceive us so?”
The Captain, to use his own expressions, was taken aback—fairly brought up all standin’.
It had never occurred to his innocent mind that he should commit himself so simply. He felt an unconquerable objection to expressions of gratitude, and perceiving, with deep foresight that such were impending, his first impulse was to rise and fly, but Emma’s kiss made him change his mind. He returned it in kind but not in degree, for it caused the bower to resound as with a pistol shot.
“Oh! wot a cracker, ain’t it just? you’re a nice man, ain’t you, to go poachin’ on other fellers—”
The Captain seized his opportunity, he broke from Emma and dashed wildly at the spider, who incontinently fled down the conduit for coals, cheering with the fury of a victorious Ashantee chief!