Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 3.djvu/56

 reflections, and abstained as much as possible from politics. I made a confident of Talbot in my love affair with Emily. Of poor Eugenia, I had long before told him a great deal.

One day at dinner we happened to talk of swimming. "I think," said Talbot, " that my friend Frank is as good a hand at that as any of us. Do you remember when you swam away from the frigate at Spithead, to pay a visit to your friend, Mrs. Melpomene, at Point?" (1 do," said I, "and also how generously you showered the musket-balls about my ears for the same."

"Your escape from either drowning or shooting on that occasion, among many others," said the commander, "makes me augur something more serious of your future destiny."

"That may be," said I; "but I dispute the legality of your act, in trying to kill me before you knew who I was, or what I was about. I might have been mad, for what you knew; or I might have belonged to some other ship; but, in