"Oakes is bowsing out his jib with his brother baronet, as we sailors say, and I have hauled out of the line, without a signal." "I hope Sir Gervaise Oakes does not consider it necessary to drink more wine than is good for the mind and body," observed Mrs.Dutton, with a haste that she immediately regretted.
"Not he.

Gervaise Oakes is as discreet a man, in all that relates to the table, as an anchorite; and yet he has a faculty of _seeming_ to drink, that makes him a boon companion for a four-bottle man.

How the deuce he does it, is more than I can tell you; but he does it so well, that he does not more thoroughly get the better of the king's enemies, on the high seas, than he floors his friends under the table.

Sir Wycherly has begun his libations in honour of the house of Hanover, and they will be likely to make a long sitting." Mrs.Dutton sighed, and walked away to a window, to conceal the paleness of her cheeks.

Admiral Bluewater, though perfectly abstemious himself, regarded license with the bottle after dinner, like most men of that age, as a very venial weakness, and he quietly took a seat by the side of Mildred, and began to converse.
"I hope, young lady, as a sailor's child, you feel an hereditary indulgence for a seaman's gossip," he said.