“Ha, John Adams, an’ boys an’ girls all, you should have seen that sight; it would have done you good. An’ you should have felt our buzzums; they was fit to bust, I tell you! You see, we’d bin chasin’ of ’em so long, that we could scarce believe our eyes when we saw ’em at long last. They wor bigger ships and more of ’em than ours; but what cared Nelson for that? not the shank of a brass button! he rather liked that sort o’ thing; for, you know, one Englishman is equal to three Frenchmen any day.”
“No, no, Jack Brace,” said John Adams, with a quiet smile and shake of the head; “’snot quite so many as that.”
“Not quite!” repeated Brace, vehemently; “why, it’s my opinion that I could lick any six o’ the Mounseers myself. Thursday November Christian there—”
“He ain’t November yet,” interrupted Adams, quietly, “he’s only October.”
“No matter, it’s all the same. I tell ’ee, John, that he could wallop twenty of ’em, easy. There ain’t no go in ’em at all.”
“Didn’t you tell me, Jack Brace, that Trafalgar was a glorious battle?”
“In coorse I did, for so it was.”
“Didn’t the Frenchmen stick to their guns like men?”
“No doubt of it.”
“An’ they didn’t haul down their colours, I suppose, till they was about blown to shivers?”