“I was sent early to sea, your Honour, by my father,” commenced Fid, after these little preliminaries had been duly observed, “who was, like myself, a man that passed more of his time on the water than on dry ground; though, as he was nothing more than a fisherman, he generally kept the land aboard which is, after all, little better than living on it altogether Howsomever, when I went, I made a broad offing at once, fetching up on the other side of the Horn, the very first passage I made; which was no small journey for a new beginner; but then, as I was only eight years old”——­

“Eight! you are now speaking of yourself,” interrupted the disappointed governess.

“Certain, Madam; and, though genteeler people might be talked of, it would be hard to turn the conversation on any man who knows better how to rig or how to strip a ship.  I was beginning at the right end of my story; but, as I fancied your Ladyship might not choose to waste time in hearing concerning my father and mother, I cut the matter short, by striking in at eight years old, overlooking all about my birth and name, and such other matters as are usually logged, in a fashion out of all reason, in your everyday sort of narratives.”

“Proceed,” she rejoined, with a species of compelled resignation.

“My mind is pretty much like a ship that is about to slip off its ways,” resumed Fid.  “If she makes a fair start, and there is neither jam nor dry-rub, smack see goes into the water, like a sail let run in a calm; but, if she once brings up, a good deal of labour is to be gone through to set her in motion again.  Now, in order to wedge up my ideas, and to get the story slushed, so that I can slip through it with ease, it is needful to overrun the part which I have just let go; which is, how my father was a fisherman, and how I doubled the Horn—­Ah! here I have it again, clear of kinks, fake above fake, like a well-coiled cable; so that I can pay it out as easily as the boatswain’s yeoman can lay his hand on a bit of ratling stuff.  Well, I doubled the Horn, as I was saying, and might have been the matter of four years cruising about among the islands and seas of those parts, which were none of the best known then, or for that matter, now.  After this, I served in his Majesty’s fleet a whole war, and got as much honour as I could stow beneath hatches.  Well, then, I fell in with the Guinea—­the black, my Lady, that you see turning in a new clue-garnet-block for the starboard clue of the fore-course.”

“Ay; then you fell in with the African,” said the Rover.

“Then we made our acquaintance; and, although his colour is no whiter than the back of a whale, I care not who knows it, after master Harry, there is no man living who has an honester way with him, or in whose company I take greater satisfaction.  To be sure, your Honour, the fellow is something contradictory and has a great opinion of his strength and thinks his equal is not to be found at a weather-earing or in the bunt of a topsail; but then he is no better than a black, and one is not to be too particular in looking into the faults of such as are not actually his fellow creatures.”