“To be sure you did.”

“And yet you come here like a rum cask.”

“Yes; now you’ve had your say, what then?”

“You’d better leave him alone,” said Mr. Chillingworth; “it’s no use arguing with a drunken man.”

“Harkye, admiral,” said Jack, steadying himself as well as he could.  “I’ve put up with you a precious long while, but I won’t no longer; you’re so drunk, now, that you keeping bobbing up and down like the mizen gaff in a storm—­that’s my opinion—­tol de rol.”

“Let him alone, let him alone,” urged Mr. Chillingworth.

“The villain,” said the admiral; “he’s enough to ruin everything; now, who would have thought that? but it’s always been the way with him for a matter of twenty years—­he never had any judgment in his drink.  When it was all smooth sailing, and nothing to do, and the fellow might have got an extra drop on board, which nobody would have cared for, he’s as sober as a judge; but, whenever there’s anything to do, that wants a little cleverness, confound him, he ships rum enough to float a seventy-four.”

“Are you going to stand anything to drink,” said Jack, “my old buffer?  Do you recollect where you got your knob scuttled off Beyrout—­how you fell on your latter end and tried to recollect your church cateckis, you old brute?—­I’s ashamed of you.  Do you recollect the brown girl you bought for thirteen bob and a tanner, at the blessed Society Islands, and sold her again for a dollar, to a nigger seven feet two, in his natural pumps? you’re a nice article, you is, to talk of marines and swabs, and shore-going lubbers, blow yer.  Do you recollect the little Frenchman that told ye he’d pull your blessed nose, and I advised you to soap it? do you recollect Sall at Spithead, as you got in at a port hole of the state cabin, all but her behind?”

“Death and the devil!” said the admiral, breaking from the grasp of Mr. Chillingworth.

“Ay,” said Jack, “you’ll come to ’em both one of these days, old cock, and no mistake.”

“I’ll have his life, I’ll have his life,” roared the admiral.

“Nay, nay, sir,” said Mr. Chillingworth, catching the admiral round the waist.  “My dear sir, recollect, now, if I may venture to advise you, Admiral Bell, there’s a lot of that fiery hollands you know, in the next room; set firm down to that, and finish him off.  I’ll warrant him, he’ll be quiet enough.”

“What’s that you say?” cried Jack—­“hollands!—­who’s got any?—­next to rum and Elizabeth Baker, if I has an affection, it’s hollands.”

“Jack!” said the admiral.

“Ay, ay, sir!” said Jack, instinctively.

“Come this way.”

Jack staggered after him, and they all reached the room where the admiral and Mr. Chillingworth had been sitting before the alarm.

“There!” said the admiral, putting the light upon the table, and pointing to the bottle; “what do you think of that?”