"Ax your honour's pardon, but I must speak. Didn't you save my life in that 'ere action with the Flower-de-louce? Haven't you been the best friend to me I ever had? Haven't you often saved me from the gangway when I've dipped my whiskers too deep into the grog-kid? And can I sit quiet with such a glass as this before me?" emptying the tumbler as he spoke.
"Well, that's enough, Tom. If you're so fond of your grog, you had better get on with your story as fast as you can, for not a drop more shall you taste till you have finished."
"But, bless your heart, sir, how am I to begin? I'm like a marine adrift on a grating, or an ass in a hay-field. I've got lots o' yarns to tell, but I don't know which way to turn myself among them."
"Well," said Dalzell, "I'll go and take a walk, and leave you to your own devices;" and he left the room.
"Now, your honour," said Tom, addressing me, "I'll tell you a famous trick our captain sarved the Johnny Croppös.[19] He was a dashing fellow that, and never stuck at nuffen: a reglar fire-eater—'ud face the devil himself. We was a-cruising off the coast of France, when the look-out hails the deck—'A strange sail ahead!' Well, there was crack on everything, below and aloft—clear ship for action—beat to quarters, and all that; and we were soon near enough to see a snug, business-looking craft, brig-rigged, standing to the westward under easy sail. So we fired a gun to leeward, and hoisted English colours, and she did the same, and hauled her wind to join us. When she came within hail, we found she was an English privateer, and the captain of her said he had something of consequence to tell our commander, and he was ordered to come on board. Well, the news soon spread over the ship, that the privateer had seen two French merchantmen at anchor under the guns of a small battery; that he was not strong enough to cut them out himself, and that he had hailed a king's ship the day before to tell her so, but he was not believed.
"'Well,' says our captain, says he, 'I'll have a slap at them at all events.'
"'I'll lead the way, sir, if you'll allow me.'
"'But'—and here they went into the cabin with the first luff; and, after staying there for some time, out they comes, and the captain of the privateer jumps into his boat, and shoves off.
"'You understand?' shouted the skipper to him.
"'Perfectly, sir.'