"Well, your honor, I was expecting to leave the city to-morrow with the captain"--meaning Tempest--"and I kind o' thought that I'd see the big guns in the yard down there, so as I could tell the boys and Mr. Scarron all about them. So I went, and found the gates all locked; but I climbed the wall and got over. Then, you know, I walked about, looking at the guns, and I didn't see one as good as ours. A man came up to me and looked at my face for a long time before he spoke, and then he said: 'Who are you?' and I said, 'Bob.' 'Bob what?' says he, and I answered kind o' proud-like, 'No, I ain't Bob Watt; I'd more likely be Bob Decatur, or Bob Porter, or Bob Vernon, or Bob Hull,' I answered all in a breath, for I was mad; I thought Watt was English, and I didn't want to be thought anything but American. So he says, 'What's your other name?' and I thought he meant again that my name was Watt, so I swore, asking your honor's pardon----" "Tell your story shortly," interrupted Vernon. "It isn't a story, your honor, it's the truth, every word of it." "Go on." "With that he struck at me, and I picked up a lanyard and knocked him on the head. He said he'd have me locked up, and I told him to do so, and if he did, Dolly Madison would look after me----" "Dolly Madison--who is that?" "Lor', your honor, it's the lady as lives at the White House--the President's wife--they all call her Dolly, and she's a friend of mine." "You should speak more respectfully of the first lady in the land, Bob," Tempest remarked warmly. "Now, Bob, that is all, is it?" "No, your honor." "What other crime did you commit?" "The man asked me what I was doing there, and I told him, and I said that the gun on the _Lively Bee_ was better than any they'd got. Then he showed how ignorant he was, for he said as how the _Lively Bee_ was English, or if not, then she was only a private craft. With that I hit him again with the lanyard--I'd been busy while I was a-talking, and had put a good knot in the end, and, oh, my, you should ha' seen him fall! He went kersplash through a window and smashed it all to pieces. Then a chap came out with a gun, and I asked him what the window would cost, for I'd pay for it. He put up his gun, and I said, 'Don't shoot, I'll pay for all the damage.' But some more came running up, and I was tied up with a rope, and brought here, and the chaps talked about treason and murder, though I didn't know what it meant. And that's all." "Quite enough, too, Bob; I am afraid you are in Queer Street." "Is that the name of this street, your honor?" "Don't be a fool, Bob. You've killed a man----" "Is that wrong, your honor?" "Wrong? Why, it's murder!" "But we killed a lot on the _Caroline_ and the _Monarch_ and----" "But that was different, that was war." "War? Well, and can't I kill a man as calls me a pirate?" "No, Bob, or you will get hanged for it. Then you did wrong in going into the navy yard. That was treason; you might have been an enemy."