"Finch was too much of a fair seaman not to catch my drift at once, but in too great a passion to own it at the time. 'D'ye think, sir,' said he, with a face like fire, 'so much sense as there is in this long rigmarole of yours, that I'm such a--that's to say, that I didn't know it before, sir? But what I've got to do with _you_, Mr Collinson, or whatever your name may be--you may have been at sea twenty years, for aught I care--but I'd like to know _why_ you come aboard here, and give yourself out for as raw a greenhorn as ever touched ropes with a kid glove?' 'Well, Mr Finch,' said I, 'and what's that to you, if I choose to be as green as the North Sea whaling-ground?' 'Why, sir,' said Finch, working himself up, 'you're devilish cunning, no doubt, but perhaps you're not aware that a passenger under a false rig, in an Indiaman, may be clapped in limbo, if the captain thinks fit? Who and what are you, I ask?--some runaway master's mate, I suppose, unless you've got something deeper in hand! Perhaps,' ended he, with a sneer, 'a pickpocket in disguise?' 'Sir,' said I, getting up off the bulwark I'd been leaning upon, 'at _present_ I choose to be a cadet, but at any rate, you shall make an apology for what you said just now, sir!' 'Apology!' said the mate turning on his heel, 'I shan't do anything of the sort! You may be thankful, in the meantime, if I don't have you locked up below, that's all! Perhaps, by-the-by, sir, all you wanted was to show off your seamanship before the young lady in the round-house there?' Here the glance the fellow gave me was enough to show he knew pretty well, all the while, what we were matched against each other for. "I could stand this no longer, of course; but, seeing that one or two of the passengers were noticing us from the poop, I looked as polite as is possible to do when you've lost your temper; and, in fact, the whole disappointment of this hair-brained cruise of mine--not to speak of a few things one had to stand--carried me away at the moment. There was no scheme I wouldn't rather have been suspected of, by this time, than the real one--namely, having gone in chase of Violet Hyde. I took a card out of my pocket and handed it quietly to Mr Finch. 'You don't seem able to name me, sir,' said I. 'However, I give you my word, you may trust that bit of pasteboard for it; and as I take you to be a gentleman by your place in this ship, why, I shall expect the satisfaction one gentleman should give another, the first time we get ashore, although it _should_ be to-morrow morning! And, by Jove!' thought I, 'I hope I'm done with the most foolish trick ever a fellow played himself! The man that ventures to call me _green_ again, or look at me as if he wanted to cool his eyes, hang me if he shan't answer for it! As for a woman,' thought I, but, oh, those two blue eyes yonder--confound it! as I caught sight of a white muslin skirt in the shade of the poop-awning above.