To this Captain Truck very cheerfully assented, and then the two took chairs, continuing the discourse very much in the blind and ambiguous manner in which it had been commenced; the one party insisting on seeing every thing through the medium of an imagination that had got to be diseased on such subjects, or with a species of monomania; while the other seemed obstinately determined to consider the entire country as things had been presented to his limited and peculiar experience, in the vicinity of the docks. "We have had a very unexpected, and a very agreeable attendant in Captain Truck," said Mrs Hawker, when Eve had placed herself by her side, and respectfully taken one of her hands. "I really think if I were to suffer shipwreck, or to run the hazard of captivity, I should choose to have both occur in his good company." "Mrs. Hawker makes so many conquests," observed Mrs. Bloomfield, "that we are to think nothing of her success with this mer-man; but what will you say, Miss Effingham, when you learn that I am also in favour, in the same high quarter. I shall think the better of masters, and boatswains, and Trinculos and Stephanos, as long as I live, for this specimen of their craft." "Not Trinculos and Stephanos, dear Mrs. Bloom field; for, _à l' exception pres de_ Saturday-nights, and sweethearts and wives, a more exemplary person in the way of libations does not exist than our excellent Captain Truck. He is much too religious and moral for so vulgar an excess as drinking." "Religious!" exclaimed Mrs, Bloomfield, in sur prise. "This is a merit to which I did not know he possessed the smallest claims. One might imagine a little superstition, and some short-lived repentances in gales of wind; but scarcely any thing as much like a trade wind, as religion!" "Then you do not know him; for a more sincerely devout man, though I acknowledge it is after a fashion that is perhaps peculiar to the ocean, is not often met with. At any rate, you found him attentive to our sex?"