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In the deep silence following his answer Billy sat down. Then a murmur of gasps, whispers and giggles grew up, which died suddenly to silence again, as Mr. Keeler's voice rang out. "Yes, Nelson is the great sea-poem of the age," said Captain Acton, "and I find more melody in the thunder of his guns than in the prettiest turns of the poetic measure. Are you going home, sister?" "Will you now sing us a song, Mr Lawrence?" exclaimed Captain Acton..
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kez_ h (Kez_h)
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"Your foot is plainly 'on your native heath,'" says Nolly, "though your name may not be 'McGregor.' What on earth were you saying to that old woman for the last four hours?"I tried logging in using my phone number and I
was supposed to get a verification code text,but didn't
get it. I clicked resend a couple time, tried the "call
me instead" option twice but didn't get a call
either. the trouble shooting had no info on if the call
me instead fails.There was
"Yes, quite so: that is exactly what I meant," returns he, agreeably. It was not what he meant; but that doesn't count. "How awfully clever you are," he says, presently, alluding to her management of the little pats, which, to say truth, are faring but ill at her hands.
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Conrad
"Well, he is a respectable though a very illiterate man, and I had half made up my mind to offer him the berth. But I am affected by your trouble. I should be glad to be of service to your son. Whilst we have talked I have been thinking, and if he is prepared to accept the position I am quite willing that he should take the Minorca out and home from the West Indies this voyage on the terms I am in the habit of giving—twelve pounds a month and a commission on the earnings of the voyage." Lucy, having sought in vain for any signs of Mr Lawrence or her father, or the Admiral on board the Minorca, ran to Captain Acton's cabin and tried to see the barque through his glass. Unfortunately she could not use both[Pg 444] hands; she needed one to keep her eye shut; therefore, when she balanced the glass upon the rail, the rolling of the schooner caused the object she tried to see to slide up and down in the lens like a toy monkey on a stick in the hands of a child. However, with her unhelped vision, she presently saw a something resembling the short stage which is slung over a ship's side for men to stand upon to paint, or do carpentry work, float from the deck of the barque to a certain elevation between the fore and main-yard-arms, where tackles or whips had been rigged; she then perceived this something slowly descend into the man-of-war's boat alongside, into which, immediately afterwards, some figures tumbled from the flight of steps at the gangway, and the boat made for the schooner. The man waited outside for Mr Lawrence. When he appeared he seized his hand, and fell upon his crooked knees and kissed and slobbered his hand, and blubbered, with tears trickling down his face, "that so help him his good God, come what might he would do anything, no matter what, to serve his honour, he would die for his honour; let his honour command him to jump into the river then and there and drown himself, he'd do it if only to please him." His gestures whilst on his knees, his extraordinary grimaces, the strange, wild terms in which he expressed his pathetic gratitude for this condescension of a gentleman in taking notice of, and rescuing from gaol a poor, pitiful vagabond, a child of the parish,[Pg 119] a no man's son, nor woman's either, a creature who lived he could not tell how, sometimes by stealing a raw vegetable, sometimes by running an errand, sometimes by the bounty of a tradesman who might fling him a crust, or of some drunken fisherman who might toss him a shilling to sing him a song and dance as he sang, a performance so hideously uncouth that Hogarth would have immortalised it could he have witnessed it; his gratitude, in short, was so diverting, at the same time moving in its appeal to pity, that Mr Lawrence could scarcely forbear a laugh, and indeed did laugh when he got rid of the fellow and walked away. Come, it's me ears a glad ditty would hear—.
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