"Ay, best forgotten; but that it's not like to be," said the Doctor,
plucking up courage. "Here's our friend the Captain has heard it; and
the mistake he has made shows there's one thing worse than its being
quite remembered, and that is, its being _half_ remembered. We can't
stop people talking; and a story like that will see us all off the
hooks, and be in folks' mouths, still, as strong as ever."

"Ay; and now I think on it, 'twas Dick Harman that has the boat down
there--an old tar like myself--that told me that yarn. I was trying for
pike, and he pulled me over the place, and that's how I came to hear it.
I say, Tom, my hearty, serve us out another glass of brandy, will you?"
shouted the Captain's voice as the waiter crossed the room; and that
florid and grizzled naval hero clapped his leg again on the chair by its
wooden companion, which he was wont to call his jury-mast.

"Well, I do believe it will be spoke of longer than we are like to
hear," said the host, "and I don't much matter the story, if it baint
told o' the wrong man." Here he touched his tumbler with the spoon,
indicating by that little ring that Tom, who had returned with the
Captain's grog, was to replenish it with punch. "And Sir Bale is like to
be a friend to this house. I don't see no reason why he shouldn't. The
George and Dragon has bin in our family ever since the reign of King
Charles the Second. It was William Turnbull in that time, which they
called it the Restoration, he taking the lease from Sir Tony Mardykes
that was then. They was but knights then. They was made baronets first
in the reign of King George the Second; you may see it in the list of
baronets and the nobility. The lease was made to William Turnbull, which
came from London; and he built the stables, which they was out o'
repair, as you may read to this day in the lease; and the house has
never had but one sign since--the George and Dragon, it is pretty well