Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 2.djvu/177

 D —— brig, of eighteen guns, at Portsmouth, whither I was directed to repair immediately, and take up my commission. In this transaction I soon after found there was an underplot, which I was too green to perceive at the time; but the wise heads of the two papas had agreed that a separation between the lovers was absolutely necessary, and that the longer it was delayed, the worse it would be for both of us: in short, that until I had attained my rank, nothing should be thought of in the way of matrimony.

As the reader is, no doubt, by this time pretty well versed in all the dialogue of parting lovers, I shall not intrude upon his or her patience with a repetition of that which has been much too often repeated, and is equally familiar to the prince and the ploughman. I should as soon think of describing the Devil's Punch Bowl, on the road to Portsmouth, where I arrived two days after my appointment.

I put up at Billett's, at the George, as a mat-