Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 1.djvu/51

 you off for this, my tight fellow, before we have been many weeks together."

I listened to this elegant harangue, with some impatience, and much more indignation. "I came back," said I, "to tell the captain how the wind was."

"You be d—d," replied Murphy; do you think the captain did not know how the wind was? and if he had wanted to know, don't you think he would have sent a sailer like me, instead of such a d—d lubberly whelp as you?"

"Αs to what the captain meant," said I, 'I do not know. I did as I was bid—but what do you mean by calling mea whelp? Iam no more a whelp than yourself!"

"Oh, you are not, a'n't you?" said Murphy, seizing me by one of my ears, which he pulled so unmercifully that he altered the shape of it very considerably, making it something like the lee board of a Dutch Schuyt.

This was not to be borne; though, as I was but thirteen, he seventeen, and a very stout