Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 3.djvu/21

 further insult; but the more the Americans perceived Thompson's value, the more eager were they to have him as their own. The second mate, whom I have already described as a rough and brutal fellow, one day proposed to him to belong to their vessel, certain, he added, that he would make his fortune by the capture of two, if not three, extra Indiamen, which they had information of on their passage. Thompson looked the man fully in the face, and said, "Did ye no hear what I telled the captain the ither day?"

"Yes," said the man, "I knew that, but that's what we call in our country 'all my eye."

"But they do not call it so in my country," said the Caledonian, at the same time planting his fist so full and plump in the left eye of the mate, that he fell like the "humi bos," covering a very large part of the deck with his huge carcass.

The man got up, found his face bleeding