"Stop, dear James." The emphasis on the word _spiritualize_ had alarmed my mother, who, to tell the truth, had a slight touch of the prevailing malady, and, but for the counteracting influence of the commander, might have been deluded into saintship by degrees. The great toe was, however, again awfully invaded, and my father's spiritual state of mind not all improved by the second twinge, which was a heavy one. "Why, d----n it--" "Don't curse, dear James." "Curse! I will; for if you had the gout, you would swear like a trooper." "Indeed I would not." "Ah, Mary," replied my father, "between twinges, if you knew the comfort of a curse or two--it relieves one so." "That, indeed, James, must be but a sorry consolation, as Mr. Cantwell said--" "Oh! d----n Cantwell," roared my father, "a fellow that will tell you that there is but one path to heaven, and that he has discovered it. Pish! Mary, the grand route is open as the mail-coach road, and Papist and Protestant, Quaker and Anabaptist, may jog along at even pace. I'm not altogether sure about Jews and Methodists. One bearded vagabond at Portsmouth charged me, when I was going to the Peninsula, ten shillings a pound for exchanging bank notes for specie, and every guinea the circumcised scoundrel gave was a light one. He'll fry--or has fried already--and my poor bewildered old aunt, under the skillful management of the Methodist preachers, who for a dozen years in their rambles, had made her house an inn, left the three thousand five per cents, which I expected, to blow the gospel-trumpet, either in California or the Cape--for, God knows, I never particularly inquired in which country the trumpeter was to sound 'boot and saddle,' after I had ascertained that the doting fool had made a legal testament quite sufficient for the purposes of the holy knaves who humbugged her. Cantwell is one of the same crew, a specious hypocrite. I would attend to the fellow no more than to that red-headed rector--every priest is a rector now--who often held my horse at his father's forge, when T happened to throw a shoe hunting,--and would half break his back bowing, if I handed him now and then a sixpence. Would I believe the dictum of that low-born dog, when he told me that in head-quarters"--and my father elevated his hand toward heaven--"they cared this pinch of snuff, whether upon a Friday I ate a rasher or red-herring?" Two episodes interrupted the polemical disquisition. In character none could be more different--the one eventuated in a clean knock down--the other decided indirectly my future fortunes--and, in the next chapter, both shall be detailed. * * * * * CHAPTER II. "_Antonio_. Thou knowest that all my fortunes are at sea; Nor have I money or commodity, To raise a present sum." _Merchant of Venice_.