years ago, when the captain was a boy, they were
great friends: of late Bazalgette had seen less of
him; still it seems strange he did not recognise
him in his own ship. But one or two causes
cooperated to prevent that. In the first place, the
mind when turned in one direction is not so
sharp in another; and Captain Bazalgette had
been told to look for David in a merchant ship
bound for the East Indies. In the next place,
insanity alters the expression of the face wonderfully,
and the captain of a frigate runs his eye
over four hundred sailors at muster, or a hundred
at work, not to examine their features, but their
dress and bearing at the one, and their handiness
at the other. The worst piece of luck was that
Mrs. Dodd did not know David called himself
William Thompson. So there stood "William
Thompson" large as life on the ship's books, and
nobody the wiser. Captain Bazalgette had a
warm regard and affection for Mrs. Dodd, and
did all he could. Indeed, he took great liberties:
he stopped and overhauled several merchant
ships for the truant; and, by-the-by, on one
occasion William Thompson was one of the boat's
crew that rowed a midshipman from the Vulture
alongside a merchant ship to search for David
Dodd: he heard the name and circumstance
mentioned in the boat, but the very name was
new to him. He remembered it, but only from
that hour; and told his loving tyrant, Georgie
White, they had been overhauling a merchant
ship and looking for one David Dodd.

It was about midsummer the Vulture anchored
off one of the South Sea islands, and sent a boat
ashore for fruit. Billy and his dearly beloved
little tyrant, Georgie White, were among the
crew. Off goes Georgie to bathe, and Billy sits
down on the beach with a loving eye upon him.
The water was calm: but the boy, with the
heedlessness of youth, stayed in it nearly an hour:
he was seized with cramp and screamed to his
comrades. They ran, but they were half a mile
from the boat. Billy dashed into the water and
came up with Georgie just as he was sinking for
the last time; the boy gripped him; but by his
great strength he disentangled himself and got
Georgie on his shoulders, and swam for the shore.
Meantime the sailors got into the boat, and
rowed hastily towards them.

Now Billy was undermost and his head under
water at times, and Georgie, some thought, had
helped strangle him by gripping his neck with
both arms. Anyway, by the boy's account, just
as they were getting into shallow water, Billy
gave a great shriek and turned over on his back;
and Georgie paddled with his hands, but Billy
soon after this sunk like a dead body while the
boat was yet fifty yards off. And Georgie
screamed and pointed to the place, and the boat
came up and took Georgie in, and the water was
so clear the sailors saw Billy lie motionless at
the bottom, and hooked him with a boat-hook
and drew him up: but his face came up alongside
a deadly white, with staring eyes, and they
shuddered and feared it was too late.

They took him into a house and stripped him,
and rubbed him, and wrapped him in blankets,
and put him by the hot fire. But all would
not do.

Then, having dried his clothes, they dressed
the body again, and laid him in the boat, and cast
the Union Jack over him, and rowed slowly and
unwillingly back to the ship, Georgie sobbing
and screaming over the body, and not a dry eye
in the boat.

The body was carried up the side, and
uncovered, just as Mrs. Dodd saw in her dream.
The surgeon was sent for and examined the body:
and then the grim routine of a man-of-war dealt
swiftly with the poor skipper. He was carried
below to be prepared for a sailor's grave.
Then the surgeon walked aft and reported
formally to the officer of the watch the death by
drowning of William Thompson. The officer of
the watch went instantly to the captain in his
cabin and reported the death. The captain gave
the stereotyped order to bury him at noon next
day; and the body was stripped that night and
sewed up in his hammock with a portion of his
clothes and bedding to conceal the outline of the
corpse, and two cannon-balls at his feet; and so
the poor skipper was laid out for a watery grave,
and covered by the Union Jack.

I don't know whether any of my young readers
are much affected by the catastrophe I have
just related. If not, I will just remind them
that even Edward Dodd was prepared to oppose
the marriage of Julia and Alfred, if any serious
ill should befal his father at sea, owing to
Alfred's imprudent interference in rescuing him
from Drayton House.

CHAPTER LIII.

LAW.

MINUTE study of my fellow-creatures has
revealed to me that there are many intelligent
persons who think that a suit at law commences
in court. This is not so. Many suits are fought
and decided by the special pleaders, and so never
come into court; and, as a stiff encounter of this
kind actually took place in Hardie v. Hardie, a
word of prefatory explanation may be proper.
Suitors come into court only to try an issue: an
issue is a mutual lie direct: and towards this
both parties are driven upon paper by the laws
of pleading, which may be thus summed: 1.
Every statement of the adversary must either be
contradicted flat, or confessed and avoided:
"avoided" means neutralised by fresh matter.
2. Nothing must be advanced by plaintiff which
does not disclose a ground of action at law. 3.
Nothing advanced by defendant, which, if true,
would not be a defence to the action. These
rules exclude in a vast degree the pitiable
defects and vices that mark all the unprofessional
arguments one ever hears; for on a breach of
any one of the said rules the other party can
demur: the demurrer is argued before the judges