“Thanks, honourable sir; your goodness in my behalf cannot be forgotten, though it shall never be said that any impatience to seek the relief you mention hurried me into a light and improper manner of unburthening my mind.  You must know, honoured gentleman, that yesterday, as I sat alone, at this very hour, on my board, reflecting in my thoughts—­for the plain reason that my envious neighbour had enticed all the newly arrived customers to his own shop—­well, sir, the head will be busy when the hands are idle; there I sat, as I have briefly told you, reflecting in my thoughts, like any other accountable being, on the calamities of life, and on the great experiences that I have had in the wars.  For you must know, valiant gentleman, besides the affair in the land of the Medes and Persians, and the Porteous mob in Edinbro’, five cruel and bloody”——­

“There is that in your air which sufficiently proclaims the soldier,” interrupted his listener, who evidently struggled to keep down his rising impatience; “but, as my time is so precious, I would now more especially hear what you have to say concerning yonder ship.”

“Yes, sir, one gets a military look after seeing numberless wars; and so, happily for the need of both, I have now come to the part of my secret which touches more particularly on the character of that vessel.  There sat I, reflecting on the manner in which the strange seamen had been deluded by my tonguey neighbour—­for, as you should know, sir, a desperate talker is that Tape, and a younker who has seen but one war at the utmost—­therefore, was I thinking of the manner in which he had enticed my lawful customers from my shop, when, as one thought is the father of another, the following concluding reasoning, as our pious priest has it weekly in his reviving and searching discourses, came uppermost in my mind:  If these mariners were honest and conscientious slavers, would they overlook a labouring man with a large family, to pour their well-earned gold into the lap of a common babbler?  I proclaimed to myself at once, sir, that they would not.  I was bold to say the same in my own mind, and, thereupon, I openly put the question to all in hearing, If they are not slavers, what are they?  A question which the King himself would, in his royal wisdom, allow to be a question easier asked than answered; upon which I replied, If the vessel be no fair-trading slaver, nor a common cruiser of his Majesty, it is as tangible as the best man’s reasoning, that she may be neither more nor less than the ship of that nefarious pirate the Red Rover.”

“The Red Rover!” exclaimed the stranger in green, with a start so natural as to evidence that his dying interest in the tailor’s narrative was suddenly and powerfully revived.  “That indeed would be a secret worth having!—­but why do you suppose the same?”