"Then you acknowledge yourself to be a smuggler, captain?" "I intend to be as long as I can make an honest living by it," he answered, laughing. "I'm not ashamed of it. It is fair play, you see. If I'm caught I lose my goods and vessel, and am sent to prison, or serve His Majesty on board a man-of-war. If I land my cargo, as I generally contrive to do, I make a good profit." As he was thus open I argued the point, trying to show that the Government must have a revenue to pay their expenses, and that his proceedings were lawless. "That's their business, not mine," he answered, not in the least degree moved by my observations. "The Government could not think very ill of us," he remarked; "for if they want information about what is going on in France, or have to send over anybody secretly, they are ready enough to apply to me, and pay well too. Why, in the war time, if it hadn't been for us smugglers, they couldn't have managed to send a messenger across Channel. Bless you! I've carried over a queer lot of characters now and then. But you must be getting hungry, young gentleman, and it's time for dinner. Come below." I found a plentiful repast, which, though somewhat roughly cooked, I did ample justice to. The skipper produced a bottle of claret and another of cognac, and pressed me to drink, but he himself, I observed, was very moderate in his potations. "If I did not keep a cool head on my shoulders, the _Saucy Bet_ would soon get into trouble," he remarked; "still, that need not stop you from making yourself happy if you like." He seemed very much surprised when I told him that I had no fancy for making myself happy in that fashion. In the afternoon the wind fell, and we lay becalmed, floating down Channel with the ebb. The smugglers swore terribly at the delay, as they were in a hurry to get over to the French coast. In the evening I walked the deck some time with the skipper, who was full of anecdotes. In the war time he had commanded a privateer, which had been tolerably successful, but his vessel had been captured at last, and he had spent some months a prisoner in France. He had on that occasion picked up a fair knowledge of French, which much assisted him, he said, in his present vocation. He was always on good terms with the mounseers, he told me, though he amused himself sometimes at their expense. "Some of my chaps and I were ashore one night, not long ago, taking a glass at a wine shop near the harbour, when a frigate came in, and a beauty she was, no doubt about that." He continued: "The Frenchmen began to praise her, and says one of them to me-- "`There, you haven't got a craft like that in the whole of your navy.' "`I don't know what we've got,' says I; `but if there comes a war we should precious soon have one, for we should have she.'