me! what makes you--" "My dear boy," went on the kind-hearted old fellow, "I take an interest in you; no lad of your stuff practises all this tomfoolery without something under it, and I see you've _some_ serious meaning or other. Did you know her before?" "Oh--why--not exactly," I dropped out, taken rather short. "I see, I see!" he went on; "but I tell you what, Collins, a cadet can do nothing madder than marry at first landing; she had better be a cold-hearted flirt, after all--though, God knows, no man can say what _that_ does but one that's--felt it! I--I mean I _knew_--a young fellow that went out as ambitious as you can be, and he--" Here the planter's voice shook a little, and he stopped, puffing at his cheroot till the short end of it just lighted up his hook nose and part of his big white whiskers in the dark, only you saw his eye glistening too. "Devil take it!" thought I, "who'd have expected the old boy to be so sharp, though." "Well but, Collins," said he at last, "just you enter heart and soul into your profession; I'd stake my life you'll rise, who knows how far--get your captain's pay even, _then_ you may think of it--that is, if she--" "Why," said I, "d'ye suppose the Judge would--" "_Judge!_" exclaimed Mr Rollock, "when--worse and worse! weren't we talking of pretty little Kate Fortescue? My _dear_ boy, you don't intend to say you mean Miss Hyde! I left _that_ to your first officer, as they call him!--why, that young girl will be the beauty of Calcutta." At this I fancied some one else gave a whistle near us. "Of course, sir," said I, raising my voice, "you didn't suppose me such a fool." In fact, Miss Fortescue, had never entered my head at all. "Something strange about _you_, Collins!" I said the planter, a little shortly; "you puzzle me, I must say." As we turned to go below, I heard somebody walk down the poop-ladder, and then the mate's voice sting out from the binnacle to "strike eight bells!"