After some conversation with himself, the admiral thought that this lawyer would be just the man to recommend the proper sort of people to be invited to the wedding of Charles and Flora; so he wrote to him, inviting himself to dinner, and received back a very gracious reply from the lawyer, who declared that the honour of entertaining a gentleman whom he so much respected as Admiral Bell, was greater than he had a right to expect by a great deal, and that he should feel most grateful for his company, and await his coming with the greatest impatience.
"A devilish civil fellow, that attorney," said the admiral, as he put the letter in his pocket, "and almost enough to put one in conceit of lawyers."
"Yes," said Jack Pringle, who had overheard the admiral read the letter.
"Yes, we will honour him; and I only hope he will have plenty of grog; because, you see, if he don't--D--n it! what's that? Can't you keep things to yourself?"
This latter exclamation arose from the fact that the admiral was so indignant at Jack for listening to what he had been saying, as to throw a leaden inkstand, that happened to be upon the table, at his head.
"You mutinous swab!" he said, "cannot a gentleman ask me to dinner, or cannot I ask myself, without you putting your spoke in the windlass, you vagabond?"
"Oh! well," said Jack, "if you are out of temper about it, I had better send my mark to the lawyer, and tell him that we won't come, as it has made some family differences."
"Family, you thief!" said the admiral. "What do you mean? What family do you think would own you? D--n me, if I don't think you came over in some strange ship. But, I tell you what it is, if you interfere in this matter, I'll be hanged if I don't blow your brains out."
"And you'll be hanged if you do," said Jack, as he walked out of the room; "so it's all one either way, old fizgig."
"What!" roared the admiral, as he sprang up and ran after Jack. "Have I lived all these years to be called names in my own ship--I mean my own house? What does the infernal rascal mean by it?"
The admiral, no doubt, would have pursued Jack very closely, had not Flora intercepted him, and, by gentle violence, got him back to the room. No one else could have ventured to have stopped him, but the affection he had for her was so great that she could really accomplish almost anything with him; and, by listening quietly to his complaints of Jack Pringle--which, however, involved a disclosure of the fact which he had intended to keep to himself, that he had sought the lawyer's advice--she succeeded in soothing him completely, so that he forgot his anger in a very short time.
But the old man's anger, although easily aroused, never lasted very long; and, upon the whole, it was really astonishing what he put up with from Jack Pringle, in the way of taunts and sneers, of all sorts and descriptions, and now and then not a little real abuse.
And, probably, he thought likewise that Jack Pringle did not mean what he said, on the same principle that he (the admiral), when he called Jack a mutinous swab and a marine, certainly did not mean that Jack was those things, but merely used them as expletives to express a great amount of indignation at the moment, because, as may be well supposed, nothing in the world could be worse, in Admiral Bell's estimation, that to be a mutinous swab or a marine.
It was rather a wonder, though, that, in his anger some day, he did not do Jack some mischief; for, as we have had occasion to notice in one or two cases, the admiral was not extremely particular as to what sorts of missiles he used when he considered it necessary to throw something at Jack's head.
It would not have been a surprising thing if Jack had really made some communication to the lawyer; but he did stop short at that amount of pleasantry, and, as he himself expressed it, for once in a way he let the old man please himself.
The admiral soon forgot this little dispute, and then pleased himself with the idea that he should pass a pleasant day with the attorney.
"Ah! well," he said; "who would have thought that ever I should have gone and taken dinner with a lawyer--and not only done that, but invited myself too! It shows us all that there may be some good in all sorts of men, lawyers included; and I am sure, after this, I ought to begin to think what I never thought before, and that is, that a marine may actually be a useful person. It shows that, as one gets older, one gets wiser."
[Illustration]
It was an immense piece of liberality for a man brought up, as Admiral Bell had been, in decidedly one of the most prejudiced branches of the public service, to make any such admissions as these. A very great thing it was, and showed a liberality of mind such as, even at the present time, is not readily found.