“You be d——­d,” replied Murphy:  “do you think the captain did not know how the wind was? and if he had wanted to know, don’t you think he would have sent a sailor like me, instead of such a d——­d lubberly whelp as you?”

“As to what the captain meant,” said I, “I do not know.  I did as I was bid—­but what do you mean by calling me a whelp?  I am no more a whelp than yourself!”

“Oh, you are not, a’n’t you?” said Murphy, seizing me by one of my ears, which he pulled so unmercifully that he altered the shape of it very considerably, making it something like the leeboard of a Dutch schuyt.

This was not to be borne; though, as I was but thirteen, he seventeen, and a very stout fellow, I should rather not have sought an action with him.  But he had begun it:  my honour was at stake, and I only wonder I had not drawn my dirk, and laid him dead at my feet.  Fortunately for him, the rage I was in, made me forget I had it by my side:  though I remembered my uniform, the disgrace brought upon it, and the admiration of the chambermaid, as well as the salute of the sentinel, all which formed a combustible in my brain.  I went off like a flash, and darted my fist (the weapon I had been most accustomed to wield) into the left eye of my adversary, with a force and precision which Crib would have applauded.  Murphy staggered back with the blow, and for a moment I flattered myself he had had enough of it.

But no—­alas, this was a day of disappointments! he had only retreated to take a spring; he then came on me like the lifeguards at Waterloo, and his charge was irresistible.  I was upset, pummelled, thumped, kicked, and should probably have been the subject of a coroner’s inquest had not the waiter and chambermaid run in to my rescue.  The tongue of the latter was particularly active in my favour:  unluckily for me, she had no other weapon near her, or it would have gone hard with Murphy.  “Shame!” said she, “for such a great lubberly creature to beat such a poor, little, innocent, defenceless fellow as that.  What would his mamma say to see him treated so?”

“D——­n his mamma, and you too,” said Pat, “look at my eye.”

“D——­n your eye,” said the waiter:  “it’s a pity he had not served the other one the same way; no more than you deserve for striking a child; the boy is game, and that’s more than you are; he is worth as many of you, as will stand between this and the iron chair at Barbican.”

“I’d like to see him duck’d in it,” said the maid.

While this was going on, I had resumed my defensive attitude.  I had never once complained, and had gained the good-will of all the bystanders, among whom now appeared my captain and his friends.  The blood was streaming from my mouth, and I bore the marks of discipline from the superior prowess of my enemy, who was a noted pugilist for his age, and would not have received the hit from me, if he had supposed my presumption would have led me to attack