"
"Then, who is he, sir?" replied I very angrily.
"Who is he! why he's the _Lord knows who_."
"No," replied I, "that's not his name; he is Lord Privilege." (I was
very much surprised that he knew that my grandfather was a lord.) "And
do you suppose," continued I, "that I would forfeit the honour of my
family for a paltry seven shillings?"
This observation of mine, and a promise on the part of the midshipman,
who said he would be bail for me, satisfied Mr Jenkins, and he allowed
me to go down the rigging. I went to my chest, and paid the seven
shillings to one of the top-men who followed me, and then went up on the
main-deck, to learn as much as I could of my profession. I asked a great
many questions of the midshipmen relative to the guns, and they crowded
round me to answer them. One told me they were called the frigate's
_teeth_, because they stopped the Frenchman's _jaw._ Another midshipman
said that he had been so often in action, that he was called the
_Fire-eater_. I asked him how it was that he escaped being killed. He
replied that he always made it a rule, upon the first cannon-ball coming
through the ship's side, to put his head into the hole which it had
made; as, by a calculation made by Professor Innman, the odds were
32,647, and some decimals to boot, that another ball would not come in
at the same hole. That's what I never should have thought of.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This celebrated personage is the prototype of Mr Nobody on board of
a man-of-war.
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