should be worth another thousand. What's my share of that?"

"A hundred pounds."

"Why, the purser couldn't work it out quicker," he cried in his
delight. "Here's for you again! We passed the Straits and worked
up to the Azores, where we fell in with the La Sabina from the
Mauritius with sugar and spices. Twelve hundred pounds she's worth
to me, Mary, my darling, and never again shall you soil your pretty
fingers or pinch upon my beggarly pay.

My dear mother had borne her long struggle without a sign all these
years, but now that she was so suddenly eased of it she fell sobbing
upon his neck. It was a long time before my father had a thought to
spare upon my examination in arithmetic.

"It's all in your lap, Mary," said he, dashing his own hand across
his eyes. "By George, lass, when this leg of mine is sound we'll
bear down for a spell to Brighton, and if there is a smarter frock
than yours upon the Steyne, may I never tread a poop again. But how
is it that you are so quick at figures, Rodney, when you know
nothing of history or geography?"

I tried to explain that addition was the same upon sea or land, but
that history and geography were not.

"Well," he concluded, "you need figures to take a reckoning, and you
need nothing else save what your mother wit will teach you. There
never was one of our breed who did not take to salt water like a
young gull. Lord Nelson has promised me a vacancy for you, and