'There were two brothers on board,' interposed his nephew, speaking
very fast and loud, 'and there not being room for both of them in the
only boat that wasn't swamped, neither of them would consent to go,
until the elder took the younger by the waist, and flung him in. And
then the younger, rising in the boat, cried out, "Dear Edward, think
of your promised wife at home. I'm only a boy. No one waits at home
for me. Leap down into my place!" and flung himself in the sea!'

The kindling eye and heightened colour of the boy, who had risen
from his seat in the earnestness of what he said and felt, seemed to
remind old Sol of something he had forgotten, or that his encircling
mist had hitherto shut out. Instead of proceeding with any more
anecdotes, as he had evidently intended but a moment before, he gave a
short dry cough, and said, 'Well! suppose we change the subject.'

The truth was, that the simple-minded Uncle in his secret
attraction towards the marvellous and adventurous - of which he was,
in some sort, a distant relation, by his trade - had greatly
encouraged the same attraction in the nephew; and that everything that
had ever been put before the boy to deter him from a life of
adventure, had had the usual unaccountable effect of sharpening his
taste for it. This is invariable. It would seem as if there never was
a book written, or a story told, expressly with the object of keeping
boys on shore, which did not lure and charm them to the ocean, as a
matter of course.

But an addition to the little party now made its appearance, in the
shape of a gentleman in a wide suit of blue, with a hook instead of a
hand attached to his right wrist; very bushy black eyebrows; and a