Kitty was now seen gliding from the foot of the cabin stairs into her mistress's apartment. The Colonel's keen eye glanced in that direction; ours took the same. A pair of legs was distinctly visible at the bottom of the stairs. "Cupid, you villain! Cupid!" shouted the Colonel, "come here; come directly, sir. Aboard or ashore, that rascal never misses an opportunity of making love. Here, Cupid! Cupid!" The Colonel's gentleman, with innocence pictured in his countenance, now entered, stepped quietly up to the foot of the table, and respectfully twitched his forelock. "What are you about there on the cabin stairs, sir?" said the Colonel. "Can't you let the young woman be quiet, and be hanged to ye?" "I vos owny a-cummin down into the cab'n, yer honour, jist to see if yer honour vaunted hennythink!" The Colonel's gentleman, I ought to have stated before this, was an old light dragoon, and a Cockney. He had lost an eye, on the same occasion when the Colonel lost an arm; obtained his discharge; and from that time followed the Colonel's fortunes. His loss, I presume, had gained him the name of Cupid. He was a civil, well-behaved, handy fellow enough; had that particular way of speaking, emphatic, and gesticulatory, which distinguishes old soldiers who have got their discharge; made himself universally useful to the Colonel, and helped him to dress and undress, morning and evening, the Colonel being dependent from the loss of a fin. Cupid, in consequence, was a privileged person: had the _entrée_ of the cabin at all times and seasons; and, being ready and sometimes sentimental in his replies, seldom made his appearance amongst us without being assailed with questions on all sides. The Colonel was now about to give him a regular jobation, but the Major struck in. "I say, Cupid, very convenient for courtship those cabin stairs in rainy weather. Eh, Cupid?" "Courtship, yer honour!" said Cupid. "I vosn't not a-doin nothink of the kind. I vos owny a-meditatin, like." "Oh, meditating were you, though, Cupid?" said Captain Gabion. "Well, pray what were you meditating about? Come, tell us your thoughts." "Vhy, sir," replied Cupid, "I vos a-meditatin upon the hair and upon the sea. Got plenty of bofe vhere ve now are; nothink helse, has I can see; so it vos owny natral I should meditate. And I vos jist a-thinkin this: that the hair is made for men, and the sea is made for fishes, heach for heach; and t'other von't do for nayther. Pull a fish hout of his own heliment hinto the hair, and he dies. And pitch a man hout of his own heliment hinto the sea, and he's drownded." "Really, Cupid," said Capsicum, "that never struck me before. It's very curious."