Squire Gregory said:  ‘Drinking, and no thinking, at dinner, William.’  The captain pledged him.

’I ’ll take the opportunity, as we’re not on board ship, of drinking to you, sir, now,’ Temple addressed the captain, whose face was resplendent; and he bowed, and drank, and said,

‘As we are not on board ship?  I like you!’

Temple thanked him for the compliment.

’No compliment, my lad.  You see me in my weakness, and you have the discernment to know me for something better than I seem.  You promise to respect me on my own quarter-deck.  You are of the right stuff.  Do I speak correctly, Mr. Harry?’

‘Temple is my dear friend,’ I replied.

’And he would not be so if not of the right stuff!  Good!  That ’s a way of putting much in little.  By Jove! a royal style.’

‘And Harry’s a royal fellow!’ said Temple.

We all drank to one another.  The captain’s eyes scrutinized me speculatingly.

‘This boy might have been yours or mine, Greg,’ I heard him say in a faltering rough tone.

They forgot the presence of Temple and me, but spoke as if they thought they were whispering.  The captain assured his brother that Squire Beltham had given him as much fair play as one who holds a balance.  Squire Gregory doubted it, and sipped and kept his nose at his wineglass, crabbedly repeating his doubts of it.  The captain then remarked, that doubting it, his conscience permitted him to use stratagems, though he, the captain, not doubting it, had no such permission.

‘I count I run away with her every night of my life,’ said Squire Gregory.  ‘Nothing comes of it but empty bottles.’

‘Court her, serenade her,’ said the captain; ’blockade the port, lay siege to the citadel.  I’d give a year of service for your chances, Greg.  Half a word from her, and you have your horses ready.’

‘She’s past po’chaises,’ Squire Gregory sighed.

‘She’s to be won by a bold stroke, brother Greg.’

‘Oh, Lord, no!  She’s past po’chaises.’

’Humph! it’s come to be half-bottle, half-beauty, with your worship, Greg, I suspect.’

’No.  I tell you, William, she’s got her mind on that fellow.  You can’t po’chay her.’

’After he jilted her for her sister?  Wrong, Greg, wrong.  You are muddled.  She has a fright about matrimony—­a common thing at her age, I am told.  Where’s the man?’

‘In the Bench, of course.  Where’d you have him?’

’I, sir?  If I knew my worst enemy to be there, I’d send him six dozen of the best in my cellar.’

Temple shot a walnut at me.  I pretended to be meditating carelessly, and I had the heat and roar of a conflagration round my head.

Presently the captain said, ‘Are you sure the man’s in the Bench?’

‘Cock,’ Squire Gregory replied.

‘He had money from his wife.’

‘And he had the wheels to make it go.’  Here they whispered in earnest.