“If it is your command, admiral, I obey with pleasure,” said the attorney; “and although I assure you, on my honour, I did not write that letter, yet some of the matters mentioned in it are so generally notorious here, that I can afford you information concerning them.” “Can you?” “I regret to say I can, for I respect the parties.” “Sit down, then—sit down. Jack, run to the steward’s room and get the wine. We will go into it now starboard and larboard. Who the deuce could have written that letter?” “I have not the least idea, sir.” “Well—well, never mind; it has brought me here, that’s something, so I won’t grumble much at it. I didn’t know my nephew was in England, and I dare say he didn’t know I was; but here we both are, and I won’t rest till I’ve seen him, and ascertained how the what’s-its-name——” “The vampyre.” “Ah! the vampyre.” “Shiver my timbers!” said Jack Pringle, who now brought in some wine much against the remonstrances of the waiters of the establishment, who considered that he was treading upon their vested interests by so doing.—“Shiver my timbers, if I knows what a _wamphigher_ is, unless he’s some distant relation to Davy Jones!” “Hold your ignorant tongue,” said the admiral; “nobody wants you to make a remark, you great lubber!” “Very good,” said Jack, and he sat down the wine on the table, and then retired to the other end of the room, remarking to himself that he was not called a great lubber on a certain occasion, when bullets were scuttling their nobs, and they were yard arm and yard arm with God knows who. “Now, mister lawyer,” said Admiral Bell, who had about him a large share of the habits of a rough sailor. “Now, mister lawyer, here is a glass first to our better acquaintance, for d——e, if I don’t like you!” “You are very good, sir.” “Not at all. There was a time, when I’d just as soon have thought of asking a young shark to supper with me in my own cabin as a lawyer, but I begin to see that there may be such a thing as a decent, good sort of a fellow seen in the law; so here’s good luck to you, and you shall never want a friend or a bottle while Admiral Bell has a shot in the locker.” “Gammon,” said Jack. “D—n you, what do you mean by that?” roared the admiral, in a furious tone. “I wasn’t speaking to you,” shouted Jack, about two octaves higher. “It’s two boys in the street as is pretending they’re a going to fight, and I know d—d well they won’t.” “Hold your noise.” “I’m going. I wasn’t told to hold my noise, when our nobs were being scuttled off Beyrout.” “Never mind him, mister lawyer,” added the admiral. “He don’t know what he’s talking about. Never mind him. You go on and tell me all you know about the—the——” “The vampyre!” “Ah! I always forget the names of strange fish. I suppose, after all, it’s something of the mermaid order?” “That I cannot say, sir; but certainly the story, in all its painful particulars, has made a great sensation all over the country.” “Indeed!”