"Ha, ha, ha!--ay," shouted Harry; "and if he addresses one of a sanguine temperament, there will be a pretty considerable traffic of quarrels carried on between them, typified and illustrated very well by the constant commerce of heat which is maintained between the poles and the equator, by the agency of opposite currents in the atmosphere. By Jove! Frank, matrimony presents the fire of two batteries at you; one rakes you fore and aft, and the other strikes between wind and water." "And pray, Harry, what sort of a consort will you sail with yourself?" inquired Rhimeson. This was, perhaps, a question, of all others, that the young sailor would have wished to avoid answering at that time. He was the accepted lover of the sister of his friend Elliot--and, at the moment he was running Frank down, to be, as he himself might have said, brought up standing, was sufficiently disagreeable. "Come, come, Harry," cried the young poet, seeing the sailor hesitate; "let's have her from skysail-mast fid to keel--from starboard to larboard stunsails--from the tip of the flying, jib-boom to the taffrail." "They're all fireships, Rhimeson!" replied Harry, with forced gaiety--for he was indignant at Elliot's keen and suspicious glance--"and, if I do come near them, it shall always be to windward, for the Christian purpose of blowing them out of the water." "A libertine," said Frank, significantly, "reviles women just in the same way that licentious priests lay the blame of the disrespect with which parsons are treated on the irreligion of the laity." "I don't understand either your wit or your manner, Frank," replied Harry, giving a lurch in his chair; "but this I know, that I don't care a handful of shakings for either of them; and I say still, that women are all fireships--keep to windward of them--pretty things to try your young gunners at; but, if you close with them, you're gone, that's all." "I'll tell you what you're very like, just now, Harry," said Frank--who had been pouring down glass after glass of wine, as if to quench his anger--"you're just like a turkey cock after his head has been cut off, which will keep stalking on in the same gait for several yards before he drops." "Elliot! do you mean to insult me?" cried Whitaker, springing furiously from his seat. "I leave that to the decision of your own incomparable judgment, sir," replied Elliot, bowing, with a sneer just visible on his features. "If I thought so, Frank, I would----but it's impossible; you are my oldest friend." And the young sailor sat down with a moody brow. "What would you, sir?" said Elliot, in a tone of calm contempt; "bear it meekly, I presume? Nay, do not look big, and clench your hands, sir, unless, like Bob Acres, you feel your valour oozing out at your palms, and are striving to retain it!"