returned a kind answer, informing my father what a promising child he
was blessed with, and giving him a direction to meet her at Greenwich,
as she had resolved upon not receiving him at Woolwich, where her false
assertions would have been exposed. Going round to all her
acquaintances, she bade them farewell, telling them that her husband had
returned well, and _well to-do_, and had ordered her to meet him at
Greenwich. Having thus satisfactorily, as she imagined, got out of this
little difficulty, she packed up and hastened to Greenwich, where she
sunk her assumed rank and waited very impatiently for her husband. He
came at last, seated with many others on the outside of a stage
coach--his hat bedecked with ribbons, a pipe in one hand and flourishing
a pewter pot in the other. It hardly need be added that he was more than
half tipsy. Nevertheless, even in this state, he was well received; and
after he had smothered her with kisses, dandled me on his knee, thrown
into her lap all the pay he had left, and drank three more pots of
porter, they went very peaceably and lovingly to repose.

I regret to say that this amity did not last long. My father's manners,
which perhaps had been softened down by the awe which he had of Lady
Hercules when he first made my mother's acquaintance, were now more
coarse, and so was his language; and the neatness and cleanliness of
person which he was obliged to maintain while performing the duties of a
coxswain to a married captain were not so observable. Besides which,
being no longer under discipline, he was almost every night intoxicated;
and, being so, was more self-willed and regardless of his wife's
injunctions. The consequences were that having received from my father
fifty pounds, my mother first locked that up, and then "unlocked her
jaw." Disputes were now hourly occurring; and it was "now you're vexed,"
and "hey diddle diddle," from morning till night.