“Who talks of Frank Elliot and love in the same breath?” cried Rhimeson; “why, his heart is like a rock, and love, like a torpid serpent, enclosed in it.”
“True,” replied Frank; “but, you know, these same serpents sting as hard as ever when once they get into the open air; besides, love, as the shepherd in Virgil discovered, is an inhabitant of the rocks.”
“Confound the fellow! he’s a walking apothegm—as consequential as a syllogism!” muttered Harry; “but come now, Frank, let us have the inexpressive she, without backing and filling any longer.”
“Upon my word, Harry, it is out of my power; but, in a few weeks, I hope to”——said Elliot.
“Hope, Frank, hope, my good fellow, is a courtier very pleasant and agreeable in his conversation, but very much given to forget his promises. But I’ll tell you, Frank, since you won’t give a toast, I will, because I know it will punish you—so, gentlemen”——
The toast was only suited for the meridian of the place in which it was given, and we will, therefore, be excused from repeating it. But Whitaker had judged rightly that he had punished his friend, who, from the strictness of his education, and a certain delicacy in his opinions respecting women, could never tolerate the desecration of these opinions by the libertine ribaldry which forms so great a part of the conversation of many men after the first bottle. Frank’s brow darkened, his keen eye turned with a glance of indignation to Harry; and he was prevented only by the circumstance of being in his own house, from instantly kicking him out of the room.
“Look at Frank now, gentles,” continued the young sailor, when the mirth had subsided; “his face is as long as a ropewalk, while every one of yours is as broad as the main hatchway. He has a reverence for women as great as I have for my own tight, clean, sprightly craft; but because a fellow kicks one of my loose spars, or puts it to a base use, I’m not to quarrel with him, as if he had called my vessel a collier, eh? Frank, my good fellow, you’re too sober; you’re thinking too much of yourself; you’re looking at the world with convex glasses; and thus the world seems little—you yourself only great; but, recollect, everybody looks through a convex glass; and that’s vanity, Frank:—there, now! the murder’s out.”
“Nay, Harry,” cried Rhimeson, good-naturedly; for he saw Elliot’s nether lip grow white with suppressed passion; “don’t push Frank too hard, for charity’s sake.”
“Charity, to be sure!” interrupted Harry; “but consider what I must have suffered if I had not got that dead weight pitched overboard. I was labouring in the trough, man, and would have foundered with that spite in my hold. Charity begins at home.”
“’Tis a pity that the charity of many persons ends there too,” said Frank drily.