of Jack, to read a newspaper that lay on the table before him.
This task was accordingly undertaken by the lame lieutenant, who,
among paragraphs, read that which follows, with an elevation of
voice which seemed to prognosticate something extraordinary: "We
are informed, that Admiral Bower will very soon be created a British
peer, for his eminent services during the war, particularly in his
late engagement with the French fleet."

Trunnion was thunderstruck at this piece of intelligence: the ring
dropped front his hand, and shivered into a thousand pieces; his
eye glistened like that of a rattle-snake; and some minutes elapsed
before he could pronounce, "Avast! overhaul that article again!"

It was no sooner read the second time, than, smiting the table
with his fist, he started up, and, with the most violent emphasis
of rage and indignation, exclaimed, "D-- my heart and liver! 'tis
a land lie, d'ye see; and I will maintain it to be a lie, from the
sprit-sail yard to the mizen-top-sail haulyards! Blood and thunder!
Will. Bower a peer of this realm! a fellow of yesterday, that scarce
knows a mast from a manger! a snotty-nose boy, whom I myself have
ordered to the gun, for stealing eggs out of the hen-coops! and
I, Hawser Trunnion, who commanded a ship before be could keep a
reckoning, am laid aside, d'ye see, and forgotten! If so be as this
be the case, there is a rotten plank in our constitution, which
ought to be hove down and repaired, d-- my eyes! For my own part,
d'ye see, I was none of your Guinea pigs: I did not rise in the
service by parlamenteering interest, or a handsome b-- of a wife.
I was not over the bellies of better men, nor strutted athwart the
quarter-deck in a laced doublet, and thingumbobs at the wrists. D--
my limbs! I have been a hard-working man, and served all offices