He had brought his official report in his pocket; and as the conversation proceeded, he covertly tore it into fragments so small that even a Mahommedan would reject them as not large enough to write the word "Allah" on.
"It's d--d lucky, Griffin, that letter didn't get to Leghorn this morning," he said, after a long pause.

"Nelson would have Bronted me famously had he got it! Yet I never believed half as devoutly in the twenty-nine articles as--" "I believe there are _thirty_-nine of them, Captain Cuffe," modestly put in Griffin.
"Well, _thirty_-nine, if you will--what signifies ten, more or less, in such matters?
A man is ordered to believe them _all_, if there were a hundred.

But I never believed in _them_ as devoutly as I believed in the destruction of that infernal picaroon.

My faith is unsettled for life!" Griffin offered a few words of condolence, but he was also too much mortified to be very able to administer consolation.

Andrea Barrofaldi, understanding the state of the case, now interposed with his courtesies, and the two officers were invited to share his bachelor's breakfast.
What followed, in consequence of this visit, and the communications to which it gave rise, will appear in the course of the narrative..