human
Well, we must go over to-morrow or the next day to commission the old tubs, I suppose,
gpt
I cannot believe that our young friend has gone, after all the efforts we made to obtain his rights for him. I would rather suppose that he was even now swimming about somewhere in the chops of the Channel, or was carried off by the ship which so abominably attempted to run you down. I have always heard that midshipmen have as many lives as a cat, and though he had become a lieutenant, he had not abandoned the privilege he enjoyed in his youth. I don't believe he is lost, and I do not intend to let either of the other claimants get hold of the property, or assume his title, until I have stronger evidence of his death than your letter supplies. I remember only a short time ago, one of the Lords of the Admiralty, or some high official in the Marine Department, was carried off by a stranger running into the vessel he was on board, and it was not until several days after that he was discovered, having clung to what is called the dolphin striker--although to what part of a ship's rigging that instrument belongs I do not know, but conclude that it must be at the end of the bowsprit--and that his lordship was hooked up by the breeks, from which disagreeable position he was rescued by the sympathising crew of the vessel which had run into his.