time with a sneering remark, which in her eagerness she didn't notice,
or didn't understand. But when he had finished what he had to do, he
gave vent to his feelings in a way she did understand,--he laughed
incredulously.

"Old Jacob there on board the Naiad! This is the first time anybody ever
heard of it."

The individual in question unfortunately came out at the moment to see
the boat off, and turning, to him, red with anger, she cried--

"Grandfather! he doesn't believe you were on board the Naiad that time!"

The old man answered at first as if he didn't deign to enter upon any
controversy on the subject--

"Oh, I suppose it's only little girls' prattle again."

But whether it was wounded vanity, or a sudden access of irritation
against the lad, or that his eye fell upon his granddaughter standing
there, so evidently incensed and resentful, he flared up the next
moment, and thrusting his huge fist under the youngster's nose, burst
out--

"If you want to know all about it, you young swabber, I may tell you I
stood on the Naiad's gun-deck with better folk than _you_ are ever
likely to come across"--he stamped his foot here as if he had the deck
under him--"when, with one broadside from the Dictator, the three masts
and bowsprit were shot away, and the main deck came crashing down upon
the lower;"--the last sentence was taken from 'Exploits of Danish and