And often, with a sort of dark lantern in his hand, he might be seen poking into his furthest vaults and cellars, and counting over his great coils of ropes, as if they were all jolly puncheons of old Port and Madeira.
By reason of his incessant watchfulness and unaccountable bachelor oddities, it was very difficult for him to retain in his employment the various sailors who, from time to time, were billeted with him to do the duty of subalterns.

In particular, he was always desirous of having at least one steady, faultless young man, of a literary taste, to keep an eye to his account-books, and swab out the armoury every morning.

It was an odious business this, to be immured all day in such a bottomless hole, among tarry old ropes and villainous guns and pistols.

It was with peculiar dread that I one day noticed the goggle-eyes of _Old Revolver_, as they called him, fastened upon me with a fatal glance of good-will and approbation.

He had somehow heard of my being a very learned person, who could both read and write with extraordinary facility; and moreover that I was a rather reserved youth, who kept his modest, unassuming merits in the background.