Temple and I followed him out of the house, fascinated by his manners and
oddness. He invited us to jump into the chariot beside him. We were
witnesses of the meeting between him and his brother, a little sniffling
man, as like the captain as a withered nut is like a milky one.

'Same luck, William?' said Squire Gregory.

'Not a point of change in the wind, Greg,' said the captain.

They wrenched hands thereupon, like two carpet-shakers, with a report,
and much in a similar attitude.

'These young gentlemen will testify to you solemnly, Greg, that I took no
unfair advantage,' said the captain; 'no whispering in passages, no
appointments in gardens, no letters. I spoke out. Bravely, man! And
now, Greg, referring to the state of your cellar, our young friends here
mean to float with us to-night. It is now half-past eleven A.M. Your
dinner-hour the same as usual, of course? Therefore at four P.M. the
hour of execution. And come, Greg, you and I will visit the cellar. A
dozen and half of light and half-a-dozen of the old family--that will be
about the number of bottles to give me my quietus, and you yours--all of
us! And you, young gentlemen, take your guns or your rods, and back and
be dressed by the four bell, or you 'll not find the same man in Billy
Bulsted.'

Temple was enraptured with him. He declared he had been thinking
seriously for a long time of entering the Navy, and his admiration of
the captain must have given him an intuition of his character, for he
persuaded me to send to Riversley for our evening-dress clothes,
appearing in which at the dinner-table, we received the captain's