"Gin by pailfuls, wine in rivers, Dash the window-glass to shivers! For three wild lads were we, brave boys, And three wild lads were we; Thou on the land, and I on the sand, And jack on the gallows-tree!"

That's it, my bully-boy! Why, you're alive again now!--And now let us talk about our business."

"Your business, if you please," said Hatteraick; hagel and donner!--mine was done when I got out of the bilboes."

"Have patience, my good friend;--I'll convince you our interests are just the same."

Hatteraick gave a short dry cough, and Glossin, after a pause, proceeded. "How came you to let the boy escape?"

"Why, fluch and blitzen! he was no charge of mine. Lieutenant Brown gave him to his cousin that's in the Middleburgh house of Vanbeest and Vanbruggen, and told him some goose's gazette about his being taken in a skirmish with the land-sharks--he gave him for a foot-boy. Me let him escape!--the bastard kinchin should have walked the plank ere I troubled myself about him."

"Well, and was he bred a foot-boy then?"

"Nein, nein; the kinchin got about the old man's heart, and he gave him his own name, and bred him up in the office, and then sent him to India--I believe he would have packed him back here, but his nephew told him it would do up the free trade for many a day, if the youngster got back to Scotland."