arch adviser, "I'd have you take care of your upper-works; for if
once you are made fast to her poop, egad! She'll spank it away,
and make every beam in your body crack with straining."

Our she-projector's whole plan had like to have been ruined by the
effect which this malicious hint had upon Trunnion, whose rage and
suspicion being wakened at once, his colour changed from tawny to
a cadaverous pale, and then shifting to a deep and dusky red, such
as we sometimes observe in the sky when it is replete with thunder,
he, after his usual preamble of unmeaning oaths, answered in these
words:--"D-- you, you jury-legg'd dog, you would give all the
stowage in your hold to be as sound as I am; and as for being taken
in tow, d'ye see, I'm not so disabled that I can lie my course,
and perform my voyage without assistance; and, egad! no man shall
ever see Hawser Trunnion lagging astern, in the wake of e'er a b--
in Christendom."

Mrs. Grizzle, who every morning interrogated her brother with
regard to the subject of his night's conversation with his friends,
soon received the unwelcome news of the commodore's aversion to
matrimony; and justly imputing the greatest part of his disgust to
the satirical insinuations of Mr. Hatchway, resolved to level this
obstruction to her success, and actually found means to interest
him in her scheme. She had indeed, on some occasions, a particular
knack at making converts, being probably not unacquainted with
that grand system of persuasion which is adopted by the greatest
personages of the age, and fraught with maxims much more effectual
than all the eloquence of Tully or Demosthenes, even when supported
by the demonstrations of truth; besides, Mr. Hatchway's fidelity
to his new ally was confirmed by his foreseeing, in his captain's