him, and to be able to haul in upon our lines, so as to get near enough to give him our lances; but that was only hope, as you’ll hear.  Of a sudden, he stopped, turned round, and made right for us, with his jaws open; then, all we had to do was to balk him, and give him the lance.  He did not seem to have made up his mind which boat he would attack—­we were pretty near together, and he yawed at one, and then at the other.  At last he made right for the other boat, and the boatsetter dodged him very cleverly, while we pulled up to him, and I put the lance up to the stock into his side.  He made a plunge as if he were going to ‘sound’ again; and as he did so, with his flukes he threw our boat into the air a matter of twenty feet, cutting it clean in half, and one of the boat’s thwarts came right athwart of my nose, and it never has been straight since.  So now you have it, messmate; and I shouldn’t mind if you passed the beer this way, for this long yarn has made my throat somewhat dry.”

“When you’ve had your swig, old chap, you may as well tell us how the matter ended,” observed my father.

“Why, it just ended in our losing the whale in the first place, and the boat with her gear in the second.  We were picked up by the other boat, and there was no time to be lost, for the sharks were brought together by the scent of the whale’s blood; the whale sounded again, and we were obliged to cut the line and return on board.  But God bless you, messmate, I could tell you many a longer yarn than that, and mayhap I shall some day or another.”

“Well, I hope you will,” replied my father; “but your fishing story has put me in mind of rather a curious fish, caught by a lad on board of a man-of-war; and suppose I finish what’s at the bottom of this here pot; send Jack for another, and when he comes back, I’ll tell you all about it.”

“There’s nothing gives me more satisfaction,” replied Ben, “than to pass away the evening in a sober, quiet way, as we are doing now, telling and listening to long yarns.  Ain’t you sleepy, Jack?”

“Oh! no,” replied I, “not a bit.  I’ll run for the porter; and don’t let father begin till I come back, Ben.  The house will be shut up soon:  shall I get more than a pot?”

“Yes, Jack; but not more beer,” replied my father, putting some silver into my hand; “get one pot of beer and a bottle of rum.  We’ll have that by way of a nightcap, old boy.”

I ran for the beer and liquor, and was soon back.  My father and Ben refilled their pipes, and the former commenced as follows: 

“When I was quartermaster on board of the ‘Melpomene,’ we had an old chap for first lieutenant whose name was Fletcher.  He was a kind-hearted man enough, as he never worried the ship’s company when there was no occasion; but, at the same time, he was what you call a great stickler for duty—­made no allowances for neglect or disobedience of orders, although he would wink at any little skylarking, walking