“What for?”

“Why, to deal candidly with you, uncle, Jack informed me that you had lately taken quite a predilection for drinking.”

“Me!” cried the admiral; “why the infernal rascal, I’ve had to threaten him with his discharge a dozen times, at least, on that very ground, and no other.”

“There’s somebody calling me,” said Jack.  “I’m a coming!  I’m a coming!” and, so he bolted out of the room, just in time to escape an inkstand, which the admiral caught up and flung after him.

“I’ll strike that rascal off the ship’s books this very day,” muttered Admiral Bell.  “The drunken vagabond, to pretend that I take anything, when all the while it’s himself!”

“Well, well, I ought certainly to have suspected the quarter from whence the intelligence came; but he told it to me so circumstantially, and with such an apparent feeling of regret for the weakness into which he said you had fallen, that I really thought there might be some truth in it.”

“The rascal!  I’ve done with him from this moment; I have put up with too much from him for years past.”

“I think now that you have given him a great deal of liberty, and that, with a great deal more he has taken, makes up an amount which you find it difficult to endure.”

“And I won’t endure it.”

“Let me talk to him, and I dare say I shall be able to convince him that he goes too far, and when he finds that such is the case he will mend.”

“Speak to him, if you like, but I have done with such a mutinous rascal, I have.  You can take him into your service, if you like, till you get tired of him; and that won’t be very long.”

“Well, well, we shall see.  Jack will apologise to you I have no doubt; and then I shall intercede for him, and advise you to give him another trial.”

“If you get him into the apology, then there’s no doubt about me giving him another trial.  But I know him too well for that; he’s as obstinate as a mule, he is, and you won’t get a civil word out of him; but never mind that, now.  I tell you what, Master Charley, it will take a good lot of roast beef to get up your good looks again.”

“It will, indeed, uncle; and I require, now, rest, for I am thoroughly exhausted.  The great privations I have undergone, and the amount of mental excitement which I have experienced, in consequence of the sudden and unexpected release from a fearful confinement, have greatly weakened all my energies.  A few hours’ sleep will make quite a different being of me.”

“Well, my boy, you know best,” returned the admiral; “and I’ll take care, if you sleep till to-morrow, that you sha’n’t be disturbed.  So now be off to bed at once.”

The young man shook his uncle’s hand in a cordial manner, and then repaired to the apartment which had been provided for him.