"My dear young lady!" cried the old tar, touched to the soul by the
feeling with which Eve acquitted herself of this little duty, "my
dear young lady--well, God bless you--God bless you all--you too, Mr.
John Effingham, for that matter--and Sir George--that I should ever
have taken that runaway for a gentleman and a baronet--though I
suppose there are some silly baronets, as well as silly lords--retain
them?"--glancing furiously at Mr. Aristabulus Bragg, "may the Lord
forget me, in the heaviest hurricane, if I ever forget whence these
things came, and why they were given."

Here the worthy captain was obliged to swallow some wine, by way of
relieving his emotions, and Aristabulus, profiting by the
opportunity, coolly took the bowl, which, to use a word of his own,
he _hefted_ in his hand, with a view to form some tolerably accurate
notion of its intrinsic value. Captain Truck's eye caught the action,
and he reclaimed his property quite as unceremoniously as it had been
taken away, nothing but the presence of the ladies preventing an
outbreaking that would have amounted to a declaration of war.

"With your permission, sir," said the captain, drily, after he had
recovered the bowl, not only without the other's consent, but, in
some degree, against his will; "this bowl is as precious in my eyes
as if it were made of my father's bones."

"You may indeed think so," returned the land-agent, "for its cost
could not be less than a hundred dollars."

"Cost, sir!--But, my dear young lady, let us talk of the real value.
For what part of these things am I indebted to you?"