Captain d**k and Captain Jacka
A Reported Tale of Two Frigates and Two Luggers
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I dare say you’ve never heard tell of my wife’s grandfather, Captain John Tackabird — or Cap’n Jacka, as he was always called. He was a remarkable man altogether, and he died of a seizure in the Waterloo year; an earnest Methody all his days, and towards the end a highly respected class-leader. To tell you the truth, he wasn’t much to look at, being bald as a coot and blind of one eye, besides other defects. His mother let him run too soon, and that made his legs bandy. And then a bee stung him, and all his hair came off. And his eye he lost in a little job with the preventive men; but his lid drooped so, you’d hardly know ’twas missing. He’d a way, too, of talking to himself as he went along, so tha
