officer as a fellow townsman, he was taken by him to be his
servant, and had never left him since.

"And have you pickled any pirates' heads?" I asked, remembering the
story, and bethinking me of the silver-mounted cup possessed by Mr.
Ridley, the captain's brother-in-law, which was said to have once
covered the head of a sallee rover.

"Pickled fiddlesticks!" says Joe. "Dunnat believe every mariner's
tale you hear, Master Humphrey."

And then he proceeded to tell me a fearful and wonderful tale of a
sea serpent, and was mightily offended when I said it was all my
eye.

Joe went away with his captain after a few days, and I own I envied
him, and for the first time felt a secret discontent in the
prospect of a life among pigs and poultry, a feeling which was
heightened when Dick Cludde soon afterwards departed with a
commission from His Majesty. Dick was a lubber and, I believed
then, though I had afterwards proof to the contrary, a coward; and
matching myself against him I knew I would do the king's navy more
credit than he. But I kept my thought to myself--and next day made
a sad bungle, I remember, of my construe of Thucydides' account of
the sea fight at Salamis.

So months passed away. I saw with grave concern that my father was
ailing more and more. The attacks of his terrible disease came more
frequently, and Mr. Pinhorn owned that he could do him no good. He
bore his pain with wonderful fortitude, never suffering a complaint