Prompt on the stroke of eight Nick Wabberley arrived, accompanied by his messmate Joshua Chick. They proved to be excellent trenchermen: indeed, they prolonged the meal longer than either my uncle or my aunt liked, the former being impatient to hear stories of the sea, the latter watching with concern the disappearance of her viands. But supper was over at last, and then my uncle bade the visitors draw their chairs to the fire, gave them each a long pipe and a sneaker of punch, and settled himself in his arm-chair to drink in the tale of their adventures. Being near seventeen I was allowed to make one of the company, to the envy of my young cousins, who hung about the room for some time, but being at last detected were bundled off to bed. It needs not to tell how late we sat up, nor how many tumblers of brandy-punch the two sailors tossed off between them before they departed, steady enough on their legs, but a trifle thick in their speech. My uncle was abstemious himself, and held a toper to be something less than a man; at an ordinary time he would have avoided to ply his visitors with liquor, but the truth is that on this occasion his whole soul was rapt away into a kind of wonderland by Nick Wabberley's tales, so that the men were able to replenish their glasses at intervals, unperceived. I have heard many a mariner's yarn since, and know them to be works of fancy and imagination as often as not; at that time I was as credulous as a babe, and my uncle scarcely less, and I doubt not we gulped down all the marvels we heard as greedily as the trout gapes at a fly. Certainly Nick Wabberley was a masterly story-teller, spinning yarns, as they say, as easily as a spider spins her web, and never at a loss for a word. Joshua Chick took but a modest part in the conversation, being very well occupied in replenishing the glasses; but every now and again he would slip in a word to correct some statement of his comrade, Nick accepting it with great composure. I noticed that these occasional contributions of Joshua's tended most often towards embellishment, and the level tones in which he related the most astonishing marvels, at the same time fixing one eye on my uncle and the other on me (keeping his hand on the brandy-bottle), made a wonderful impression on us. It appeared that the two sailors had been members of the company which sailed with Captain Cook (he was then lieutenant) on his first voyage into the southern hemisphere. My uncle knew by heart the story of this voyage as it is given in Dr. Hawkesworth's book, and expressed great surprise that so many of the incidents and particulars related by Nick Wabberley were not mentioned in that worthy doctor's pages. He even ventured at one point to controvert a statement of Nick's, adducing the doctor as his authority, at which Nick waxed mightily indignant. "Why, d'ye see, warn't I there?" he said. "Warn't I there, Josh?" "You was," says Chick firmly.