Jack was perfectly satisfied with his dinner, and with his new-found relatives. Mrs. Bastable and he became good friends at first sight. She was a pleasant, fresh-colored woman of forty, quiet in manner and speech, but with a shrewdly humorous eye. Kate was fifteen. She said little, but took stock of her new cousin as he chattered at the dinner-table. The last member of the family was Arthur, a boy of twelve, who, Jack found afterward, was not nearly so shy as he looked. An only son, he had not been sent to school, but was tutored at home. The tutor formed the sixth at table, a slight man of about thirty, with a very swarthy skin and intensely black eyes, good features, and a glittering smile. He was introduced to Jack as Monsieur de Fronsac, a Frenchman of a noble house. He had emigrated a few years before, and settled in England as a teacher of languages and mathematics. Monsieur de Fronsac bowed and smiled when the introduction was made, and said that he was charmed and delighted to meet an officer of the king’s so excellent navy. Jack found that he was expected to do most of the talking. His cousins plied him with questions about the latest news in London. What was happening in India? Had Spain declared war? What did the people in London think of the chances of a French invasion? Jack was equal to the demands made upon him. "Oh, as to India," he said, "a day or two before I left we got advice that that Mahratta fellow, Holkar, had invaded our territories and General Wellesley was after him. He’ll soon settle his hash. And Admiral Keith is going to have a shot at those flat-bottomed boats that Boney has got at Boulogne. They’ll never cross the Channel, not they. Praams they call ’em: miserable tools; a storm would knock ’em to pieces; they can’t hug the wind; and the eight-pounder they’ve got mounted aft is a fixture, so that if we laid a small boat alongside, the gun would be useless, and they’d only have musketry to resist with. And the poor wretches on board get so seasick if there’s the least swell that they lie about groaning in the hold, too weak to lift a musket. One of ’em was captured last year by a gun-brig of ours; she’d got a little leeward of Boulogne and couldn’t get back, and our brig had her by the heels as she was steering large for Calais. Our fellows don’t believe old Boney intends to send ’em across at all, but only wants to frighten us. By George! I wish he would, though. We’d make ducks and drakes of his praams, there’s not a doubt about that." "But they might row over in a calm," suggested Mr. Bastable; "then our cruisers would be helpless."