"What were you saying?" asked Vernon. "Nothing, your honor." "But you laughed----" "Yes, your honor, I laughed--ha, ha, ha!--but at my thoughts." "If your thoughts were so interesting I would like to laugh with you." Vernon was in an unusually pleasant humor; perhaps the genial influence of the wine and the sharpness of the winter air combined made him feel bright and cheerful. "Come now, your thoughts, watchman; what were they like?" added Tempest. "But your honor may be thinking I'm presuming----" "No, no. Come, let us hear them." "Well, your honor did call that harum-scarum boy, whose neck is likely to be lengthened, unless the good Lord forbid, a powder-monkey--ha, ha, ha!" "Ha, ha, ha! So he is a powder-monkey," laughed Vernon, "and I have several more of them on my ship." "Audacious monkeys!" said the watchman. "No, powder-monkeys. Perhaps you do not understand----" "Never mind, sir. I'd like to remember that name, and have a laugh at it many a time." It was no use trying to explain to the watchman, so Vernon desisted and walked along by the side of the officer, threading the streets, which were but sparsely built up in those days, to the place where Bob was confined. The lockup was near the Potomac, and not far from the then new navy yard. Bob was so great a criminal in the eyes of the watchman that, to prevent his escape, he had been placed in the stocks. He was seated on a hard bench, his ankles fastened securely through holes in a movable board in front of him. It was impossible for him to stand up, and as his seat was loose, if he wriggled about much the bench would be overturned, and he would fall on his back, with his feet, still imprisoned, above his head. "Bob, what means this?" asked Vernon. "I'm glad your honor came; but, sir, the watch tells me I'm to be hanged at daybreak. Not that I minds death--a powder-monkey ought not to be afeared--but I'd like to meet it on the deck of the _Lively Bee_, sir, and I'd like an English bullet to take me off rather than American rope." "What are you talking about? What have you been doing?" "Nothing, sir. Nothing." Now this was a strange thing. Here was a boy in the stocks, told he was to die at daybreak, and yet declaring that he was guiltless of all crime. "But with what are you charged?" asked Tempest. "Lor', your honor, they didn't charge me anything. I'd have paid if they'd let me, but they said I must die." "But you must have done something wrong." "If I did I'm tarnation sorry, but I ain't sure I did wrong." "Tell us all."