“Well, I never would have thought it had they told me that you and I should have parted company.  Many, many years has it taken you to grow to your present length; often have you been handled, often have you been combed, and often have you been tied.  Many’s the eel has been skinned for your sarvice, and many’s the yard of ribbon which you have cost me.  You have been the envy of my shipmates, the fancy of the women, and the pride of poor Tom Saunders.  I thought we should never have parted on ’arth, and, if so be my sins were forgiven me, and I could show a fair log, that I might be permitted to wear you in the world which is to come.  But there you are—­parted for all the world like a limb shot off in action, never to be spliced again.  What am I to say when I go on board?  I shall have a short tale to tell, instead of a long tail to show.  And the wife of my busum to do this!  Well, I married too high, and now my pride is laid low.  Jack, never marry a lady’s ladies’ maid; for it appears that the longer the names the more venomous the cattle be.”

Just as he had finished I heard my mother coming downstairs with Virginia, whom she had taken up and dressed, to take away with her.  “Hush!” I heard her softly say to Virginia, “don’t speak, dear, or you’ll wake your naughty father.”

She had hardly said this when she made her appearance, with Virginia on one arm and a large bundle on the other.  But as soon as she perceived that my father was awake, and cognizant of her revenge, she uttered a loud scream, dropped Virginia and the bundle, and, running upstairs to her own room, locked herself in.

Poor little Virginia set up a roar at this very unusual (and I believe felonious) act of child-dropping on the part of my mother.  I ran to her, and carried her to the sofa, while my father, with compressed lips, first taking two or three quarter-deck strides up and down the room, locked the street door, put the key in his pocket, and then ascended the stairs to pay a visit to my mother, who, I believe, would very willingly have been “not at home”; but some people are importunate, and will take no refusal; and, when my father retired three or four steps from the door, and with a sudden run brought the whole weight of his foot to bear upon it, it flew open.  At first my mother was not visible, my father thought she had escaped; but at last he spied her legs under the bed.  Seizing her by her extremities, he dragged her out, without any regard to propriety, until he had her into the middle of the room with his foot upon her.  What a situation for a lady’s ladies’ maid!  I had put Virginia down on the sofa, and crept up the stairs to see what took place.  My father and mother were in these relative positions, and he thus addressed her: