Whilst this singular conversation was being conducted in the cabin, a scene in the tragicomedy of which this book is the relation was being prepared on deck. The convoy on the starboard bow had considerably risen and was scattering, and flags from the armed fabrics which watched the vessels streamed at gaff end and mizzen royal mast-head in signal to the slow sailers and to other ships whose blockheads of masters, indifferent to the safety of the bottoms they commanded, acted without reference to the possibility of the enemy heaving into view, and some of them with the contemptible determination to prove their independence by giving the commodore and the naval officers in the other ships as much trouble and annoyance as skilless seamanship could provide.,
"Well, sir," answered Mr Pledge, pleased by the skipper's candour and condescension, "it's not for a plain sailor man like me to put his hand into such a tar-bucket as this. I know my bit, and I'm a-willing for to do it, and if the hands get to hear the story of the lady it'll come from her or from that there humpbacked steward who waits upon her, and not from me, for I'm for minding my own affairs, and sticking like a barnacle to a ship's bottom to the ondertakings I enter into.",
Billy gave such a perceptible start that he knocked the "Sunday Lesson Helps" sheet out of the hands of Elgin Scraff, on his left. That this snub-nosed, flat-faced, beefy boy beside him could possibly be a brother to the dainty, angelic creature who had caused his heart to turn such violent flip-flops and disorganize his whole mental poise was inconceivable..
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