"Why, you scoundrel!" cried the admiral, "how came you here?"
"On my legs," said Jack. "Do you think nobody wants to know nothing but yourself? I'm as fond of a yarn as anybody."
"But if you are," said Mr. Chillingworth, "you had no occasion to come against me as if you wanted to move a house."
"You said as you wasn't in a position to say something as I wanted to hear, so I thought I'd alter it for you."
"Is this fellow," said the doctor, shaking his head, as he accosted the admiral, "the most artful or stupid?"
"A little of both," said Admiral Bell—"a little of both, doctor. He's a great fool and a great scamp."
"The same to you," said Jack; "you're another. I shall hate you presently, if you go on making yourself so ridiculous. Now, mind, I'll only give you a trial of another week or so, and if you don't be more purlite in your d—n language, I'll leave you."
Away strolled Jack, with his hands in his pockets, towards the house, while the admiral was half choked with rage, and could only glare after him, without the ability to say a word.
Under any other circumstances than the present one of trouble, and difficulty; and deep anxiety, Henry Bannerworth must have laughed at these singular little episodes between Jack and the admiral; but his mind was now by far too much harassed to permit him to do so.
"Let him go, let him go, my dear sir," said Mr. Chillingworth to the admiral, who showed some signs of an intention to pursue Jack; "he no doubt has been drinking again."