But a thing of that sort could not always last, and before very long I was quite at home with the history of Mr.Gundry.
Solomon Gundry, of Mevagissey, in the county of Cornwall, in England, betook himself to the United States in the last year of the last century.

He had always been a most upright man, as well as a first-rate fisherman; and his family had made a rule--as most respectable families at that time did--to run a nice cargo of contraband goods not more than twice in one season.

A highly querulous old lieutenant of the British navy (who had served under Nelson and lost both, arms, yet kept "the rheumatics" in either stump) was appointed, in an evil hour, to the Cornish coast-guard; and he never rested until he had caught all the best county families smuggling.

Through this he lost his situation, and had to go to the workhouse; nevertheless, such a stir had been roused that (to satisfy public opinion) they made a large sacrifice of inferior people, and among them this Solomon Gundry.

Now the Gundries had long been a thickset race, and had furnished some champion wrestlers; and Solomon kept to the family stamp in the matter of obstinacy.