And thus he left me, upbraiding myself that I should have mentioned money.  And yet, I reflected secondly, why not?  He was no more nor less than a master of a merchantman, and surely nothing was out of the common in such a one accepting what he had honestly come by.  Had my affection for him been less sincere, had I not been racked with sympathy, I had laughed over his notions of gentility.  I resolved, however, that when I had reached London and seen Mr. Dix, Mr. Carvel’s agent, he should be rewarded despite his scruples.  And if he lost his ship, he should have one of my grandfather’s.

But at dinner he had plainly forgot any offence, and I had more cause than ever to be puzzled over his odd mixture of confidence and aloofness.  He talked gayly on a score of subjects,—­on dress, of which he was never tired, and described ports in the Indies and South America, in a fashion that betrayed prodigious powers of acute observation; nor did he lack for wit when he spoke of the rich planters who had wined him, and had me much in laughter.  We fell into a merry mood, in Booth, jingling the glasses in many toasts, for he had a list of healths to make me gasp, near as long as the brigantine’s articles,—­Inez in Havana and Maraquita in Cartagena, and Clotilde, the Creole, of Martinico, each had her separate charm.  Then there was Bess, in Kingston, the relict of a customs official, Captain Paul relating with ingenuous gusto a midnight brush with a lieutenant of his Majesty, in which the fair widow figured, and showed her preference, too.  But his adoration for the ladies of the more northern colonies, he would have me to understand, was unbounded.  For example, Miss Arabella Pope of Norfolk, in Virginia,—­and did I know her?  No, I had not that pleasure, though I assured him the Popes of Virginia were famed.  Miss Pope danced divinely as any sylph, and the very memory of her tripping at the Norfolk Assembly roused the captain to such a pitch of enthusiasm as I had never seen in him.  Marvellous to say, his own words failed him, and he had recourse to the poets: 

          “Her feet beneath her petticoat
          Like little mice stole in and out,
          As if they feared the light;
          But, oh, she dances such a way! 
          No sun upon an Easter-day
          Is half so fine a sight.”

The lines, he told me, were Sir John Suckling’s; and he gave them standing, in excellent voice and elegant gesture.

He was in particular partial to the poets, could quote at will from Gay and Thomson and Goldsmith and Gray, and even from Shakespeare, much to my own astonishment and humiliation.  Saving only Dr. Courtenay of Annapolis I had never met his equal for versatility of speech and command of fine language; and, having heard that he had been at sea since the age of twelve, I made bold to ask him at what school he had got his knowledge.