such treatment, and I could not feel angry with my father; I therefore
stayed below, and went for the porter as was required.

I believe that at first it had been my father's intentions to have
administered a much severer castigation to my mother, and then to have
left the house, taking me with him, for he had not been apprised of the
birth of Virginia; but whatever were his intentions before he came, or
for the morrow, it is certain that he continued to smoke and talk with
old Ben the Whaler till a very late hour, while I sat by and listened.




CHAPTER SIX

A bright pleasant Evening after a Squall, in which the Art of
Angling is introduced in a way which would have added to the
Knowledge of Izaac Walton himself.


"I beg pardon, messmate," said Ben, as he and my father became more
sociable; "but may I make so bold as to ask you how you contrived to get
that seam across your figure-head? You did say something about a
Frenchman, if I heard right; and as the war is now of two years'
standing, I suppose you've had a rap or two at Mounseer."

"'Xpect I have," replied my father. "Well, old chap, I'll just wet my
whistle, and then I'll tell you all about it, and it won't take long,
neither. The boats were ordered away--"