And the sound of my own name pricked me up to
listen sharply with my one good ear. You must bear in mind, Rector,
that I could not see them, and durst not get up to peep over the
quarter-rail, for fear of scaring them. But I was wearing a short
hanger, like a middy's dirk--the one I always carry in the battery."
"I made Adam promise, before he went to London," Mrs. Stubbard explained
to Mrs. Twemlow, "that he would never walk the streets without steel or
firearms. Portsmouth is a very wicked place indeed, but a garden of Eden
compared with London."
"Well, sir," continued Captain Stubbard, "the first thing I heard those
Frenchmen say was: 'Stoobar is a stupid beast, like the ox that takes
the prize up here, except that he has no claim to good looks, but the
contrary--wholly the contrary.' Mrs. Stubbard, I beg you to preserve
your temper; you have heard others say it, and you should now despise
such falsehoods. 'But the ox has his horns, and Stoobar has none. For
all his great guns there is not one little cup of powder.' The villains
laughed at this, as a very fine joke, and you may well suppose that I
almost boiled over. 'You have then the command of this beast Stoobar?'
the other fellow asked him, as if I were a jackass. 'How then have you
so very well obtained it?' 'In a manner the most simple. Our chief has
him by the head and heels: by the head, by being over him; and by the
heels, because nothing can come in the rear without his knowledge.
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