"Well, my lady, in regard o' the upshot of fighting, it isn't for an onedecated tar like myself to dilute upon the religion of the thing; but, bless you, my lady, suppose as you had the English ensign hoisted on the staff, or, for the matter o' that, at the gaff-end, and an enemy was to dare to presume to be so onveterate bould as to fire a shot at it;" he warmed as he proceeded, "why wouldn't you, my lady, open your ports and run out your guns for the honour of ould England's glory? And when your guns are run out, why what's the use on 'em if you don't clap a match to the touch-holes and pour in a reg'lar broadside?" "Oh, it must be horrible work, Ben," said Mrs. Heartwell, as the picture of her husband, mangled and dying, was visibly presented to her view; "you throw the supposed dead overboard without being certain that life is extinct--" "Avast, my lady, avast; we never does that--no, no; a shipmate or a messmate aren't so easily expended," returned Ben, with a solemn shake of the head. "But there's a sort of nat'ral inkstink amongst us tars--a kind of cable-splice with each other, so that we knows at once as well as any doctor as ever sarved his time at pill-building when the strands are drawn, and the craft has slipped from its moorings; that is, my lady, jist as this here, we can tell in a moment when a shipmate or messmate has broke adrift and got beyond hail; bless you, they're all _distinct_ afore we gives 'em a launch, and as for the wounded, why they're carried below to the cockpit to get dressed, or to have their precious limbs lopped off like old junk, condemned as onsarviceable. But what's the odds, my lady, so as you're happy?" One of Ben's peculiarities, and which long habit had rendered perfectly familiar to him, was the general use of the expression "What's the odds so as you're happy?" and as he mostly contrived to lug it in whatever the course of conversation might be, it often happened that it found utterance on very inappropriate occasions. The idea of happiness connected with the amputating of a limb would never have entered the mind of any other person than Ben; but his mistress was too much accustomed to the humane and generous disposition of the worthy seaman to suppose that he was indulging in levity, or ridiculing distress; she was perfectly aware that all Ben intended to convey was, that "a contented mind might be supported under every trial and misfortune."