Chapter XXVII
Captain and Mrs To--Pork--We go to Plymouth, and fall in with our old
Captain.
I immediately took leave of my family, and set off for Portsmouth, and
in two days arrived at the Fountain inn, where O'Brien was waiting to
receive me. "Peter, my boy, I feel so much obliged to you, that if your
uncle won't go out of the world by fair means, I'll pick a quarrel with
him, and shoot him, on purpose that you may be a lord, as I am
determined you shall be. Now come up into my room, where we'll be all
alone, and I'll tell you all about the ship and our new captain. In the
first place, we'll begin with the ship, as the most important personage
of the two: she's a beauty, I forget her name before she was taken, but
the French know how to build ships better than keep them. She's now
called the _Sanglier_, which means a wild pig, and, by the powers! a
_pig_ ship she is, as you will hear directly. The captain's name is a
very short one, and wouldn't please Mr Chucks, consisting only of two
letters, T and O, which makes To; his whole title is Captain John To. It
would almost appear as if somebody had broken off the better half of his
name, and only left him the commencement of it; but, however, it's a
handy name to sign when he pays off his ship. And now I'll tell you what
sort of a looking craft he is. He's built like a Dutch schuyt, great
breadth of beam, and very square tuck. He applied to have the quarter
galleries enlarged in the two last ships he commanded.
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