Chapter 41 - Page 2

going the rounds, and would turn up somewhere, when our guns were stormed, without a bit of stuff to make answer."

"Ah, that's the way they do everything now!" interrupted Mr. Twemlow. "I thought you had been very quiet lately; but I did not know what a good reason you had. We might all have been shot, and you could not have fired a salute, to inform the neighbourhood!"

"Well, never mind," replied the Captain, calmly; "I am not complaining, for I never do so. Young men might; but not old hands, whose duty it is to keep their situation in life. Well, you must understand that the air of London always makes me hungry. There are so many thousands of people there that you can't name a time when there is nobody eating, and this makes a man from the country long to help them. Anyhow, I smelled roast mutton at a place where a little side street comes up into the Strand; and although it was scarcely half past twelve, it reminded me of Mrs. Stubbard. So I called a halt, and stood to think upon a grating, and the scent became flavoured with baked potatoes. This is always more than I can resist, after all the heavy trials of a chequered life. So I pushed the door open, and saw a lot of little cabins, right and left of a fore and aft gangway, all rigged up alike for victualling. Jemima, I told you all about it. You describe it to the Rector and Mrs. Twemlow."

"Don't let us trouble Mrs. Stubbard," said the host; "I know the sort of thing exactly, though I don't go to that sort of place myself."

"No, of course you don't. And I was a little scared at first, for there was sawdust enough to soak up every drop of my blood, if they had pistolled me. Mrs. Twemlow, I beg you not to be alarmed. My wife has such nerves that I often forget that all ladies are not like her. Now don't contradict me, Mrs. Stubbard. Well, sir, I went to the end of this cockpit--if you like to call it so--and got into the starboard berth, and shouted for a ration of what I had smelled outside. And although it was far from being equal to its smell--as the character is of everything--you might have thought it uncommon good, if you had never tasted Mrs. Stubbard's cooking, after she had been to the butcher herself. Very well. I don't care for kickshaws, even if I could afford them, which has never yet been my destiny. So I called for another ration of hot sheep--beg your pardon, ladies, what I mean is mutton--and half a dozen more of baked potatoes; and they reminded me of being at home so much that I called for a pint of best pine-apple rum and a brace of lemons, to know where I was--to remind me that I wasn't where I couldn't get them."

"Oh, Adam!" cried Mrs. Stubbard, "what will you say next? Not on weekdays, of course, but nearly every Sunday--and the samples of his powder in his pocket, Mr. Twemlow!"

"Jemima, you are spoiling my