I begged leave, in assenting to his doctrine, to differ from his application of it, as we ought not to risk, by using a figurative expression, the exciting of any absurd images or catachrestical ideas. The author began to warm, and terminated my gentle representation by ordering me over to leeward, with this pompous speech, "I tell you what, sir, your friends have spent their money and your tutors their time upon you to little purpose; for know, sir, that when progress is to be made anywhere, in any shape, or in any manner, a more appropriate phrase than paving your way cannot be used--send the top-men aloft to loose the top-gallant sails." Checked, though not humbled, I repeat the necessary orders, and no sooner do I see the men on the rattlings, than I squeak out at the top of my voice, "_Pave your way_ up the rigging--_pave your way_, you lubbers." The men stop for a moment, grin at me with astonishment, and then scamper up like so many party-coloured devils. "Mr Rattlin, pave your way up to the mast-head, and stay there till I call you down," said the angry lieutenant; and thus, through my love for the figurative, for the first time I tasted the delights of a mast-heading. CHAPTER THIRTY NINE. RALPH REGENERATETH HIMSELF AND BECOMETH GOOD, FOR HALF-AN-HOUR--SINGETH ONE VERSE OF A HYMN, ESCHEWETH TELLING ONE LIE, AND GETTETH HIS REWARD IN BEING ASKED TO BREAKFAST. What a nice, varied, sentimental, joyous, lachrymose, objurgatory, laudatory, reflective volume might be made, entitled, "Meditations at the Mast-head!"