although, by rights, I ought to be a gentleman. You needn’t smile. I only said I ought to be one, but I am not. Yes, my father was a clergyman in the west of England. I won’t exactly say where. However, he was rector of the parish, and I was his eldest son, and consequently the hope of his house. I had a younger brother who, I suppose, is at home doing well, at least he was when I last heard from him, but that’s a good many years ago. Well, I may safely say that in all the west, east, north, or south of England, or, for the matter of that, any other country, there never grew up a more mischievous or incorrigible boy than I was. From the time I was first put in trousers until I got the bounce for good from my reverend father, I did nothing that I could help but rob birds’ nests, upset bee-hives, and abet poachers and other bad characters in the neighborhood. I ran away and stayed with a gang of gipsies for six months, and the vagabond proclivities of my nature were remarkably well developed, as you can readily understand, in their company. A slight flirtation with a young woman, the particulars of which I need not mention, occasioned my hasty departure from the tribe, and I returned home a prodigal son indeed. I was then sent to Eton, where I attained a smattering of classics and mathematics, but as I unfortunately took the liberty of putting a quantity of cobbler’s wax in one of the tutor’s boots, and was convicted of divers other peccadilloes of like nature, I got my conge from my alma mater, and returned home again. My father, good man, got out of all patience with me, for my language was occasionally of the vilest, and I swore like our army in Flanders at the servants on all possible occasions. I was given a £50 note with a request that I would go forth and seek my fortune, which I did in London, but didn’t find it. I spent all my money, and as a last resource shipped as boy on a drogher bound to Newcastle for coals. I was just turned sixteen then, and bitterly did I curse the day I tried the sea for a living. I was ropes ended by the skipper, thrashed by the mate, and kicked and cuffed by all the crew. This didn’t suit me at all, so I stole the boat one night when I was on anchor watch, and sculled myself ashore, letting the boat go adrift when I landed, and tramped my way to Liverpool. I shipped as boy again on a Packet ship for New York, and on the passage I got it lively from all hands, they leading me the life of a dog. Well, we were all discharged in New York, and I shipped again, this time for Marseilles as ordinary seaman. THE CAPTAIN WAS A TYRANT,