rendezvous.

They had received a previous intimation of what was on the anvil,
from the landlord, before Mr. Pickle thought proper to declare
himself; in consequence of which, the topic of the one-eyed commander's
discourse, at their meeting, for several evenings before, had been
the folly and plague of matrimony, on which he held forth with great
vehemence of abuse, leveled at the fair sex, whom he represented
as devils incarnate, sent from hell to torment mankind; and
in particular inveighed against old maids, for whom he seemed to
entertain a singular aversion; while his friend Jack confirmed the
truth of all his allegations, and gratified his own malignant vein
at the same time by clenching every sentence with a sly joke upon
the married state, built upon some allusion to a ship or sea-faring
life. He compared a woman to a great gun loaded with fire, brimstone,
and noise, which, being violently heated, will bounce and fly, and
play the devil, if you don't take special care of her breechings.
He said she was like a hurricane that never blows from one quarter,
but veers about to all points of the compass. He likened her to a
painted galley, curiously rigged, with a leak in her hold, which
her husband would never be able to stop. He observed that her
inclinations were like the Bay of Biscay; for why? because you may
heave your deep sea lead long enough without ever reaching the
bottom; that he who comes to anchor on a wife may find himself
moored in d--d foul ground, and after all, can't for his blood slip
his cable; and that, for his own part, though he might make short
trips for pastime, he would never embark in woman on the voyage of
life, he was afraid of foundering in the first foul weather.

In all probability, these insinuations made some impression on the