"
"Well,"--this word Ithuel invariably pronounced, "wa-a-l"--"well, to my
notion, the most profitable and the most agreeable battles are the
shortest; and the pleasantest victories are them in which there's the
most prize money, Howsever, as that brig is only an Austrian, I care
little what you may detairmine to do with her; was she English, I'd head
a boat myself, to go in and tow her out here, expressly to have the
satisfaction of burning her. English ships make a cheerful fire!"
"And that would be a useless waste of property, and perhaps of blood,
and would do no one any good, Etoo_ell_."
"But it would do the accursed English _harm_, and that counts for a
something, in my reckoning. Nelson wasn't so over-scrupulous, at the
Nile, about burning your ships, Mr. Rule--"
"_Tonnerre!_ why do you always bring in that _malheureux _ Nile?--Is it
not enough that we were beaten--disgraced--destroyed--that a friend must
tell us of it so often?"
"You forget, Mr. Rule, that I was an _inimy, then_" returned Ithuel,
with a grin and a grim smile. "If you'll take the trouble to examine my
back, you'll find on it the marks of the lashes I got for just telling
my Captain that it was ag'in the grain for me, a republican as I was by
idee and natur', to fight other republicans. He told, me he would first
try the grain of my skin, and see how that would agree with what he
called my duty; and I must own, he got the best on't; I fit like a tiger
ag'in you, rather than be flogged twice the same day.
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