"What was he ashamed of?"
"Why, of being naked."
"I see. Damme, it fits in like a puzzle!"
"But at the castle, sad to say, no one recognised the proud Jovinian. 'Avaunt!' said the porter, and threatened to have him whipped for his impudence. This distressing experience caused the Emperor to reflect on the vanity of human pretensions, seeing that he, of whom the world stood in awe, had, with the loss of a few clothes, forfeited the respect of a slave."
"I see," repeated Mr. Jope, as the narrator paused. "What became of the beggar?"
"I knew a worse case than that, even," said Bill Adams, turning his quid meditatively. "It happened to a Bristol man, once a shipmate of mine; by name Zekiel Philips, and not at all inclined to stoutness when I knew him."
"Why should he be?"
"You wait. His wife kept a slop-shop at Bristol, near the foot of Christmas Stairs—if you know where that is?"
The Major, thus challenged, shook his head.
"Ah, well; you'll have heard of O-why-hee, anyway—where they barbecued Captain Cook? And likewise of Captain Bligh of the Bounty—Breadfruit Bligh, as they call him to this day? Well, Bligh, as you know, took the Bounty out to the Islands under Government orders to collect breadfruit, the notion being that it could be planted in the West Indies and grown at a profit. When he came to grief and Government lookedlike dropping the job, a party of Bristol merchants took the matter up, having interests of their own in the West Indies, and fitted out a vessel—a brig she was, as I remember—called the Perseverance. Whereby this here friend o' mine, Zekiel Philips by name, shipped aboard of her. Whereby they made a good passage and anchored off one of the islands—Otaheety or not, I won't say—and took aboard a cargo, being, as they supposed, ord'nary breadfruit; and stood away east-by-south for the Horn, meaning to work up to Kingston, Jamaica. But this particular breadfruit was of a fattening natur', whether eaten or, as you may say, ab-sorbed into the system through a part of it getting down to the bilge and fermenting, and the gas of it working up through the vessel. Whereby, the breeze holding steady and no sail to trim for some days, the crew took it easy below, with naught to warn 'em, unless, maybe, 'twas a tight'ning o' the buttons. Whereby on the fifth day they ran a-foul of a cyclone; and the cry being for all hands on deck, half a dozen stuck in the hatchway and had to be sawed loose. Whereby, in the meantime, she carried away her mainm'st, and the wreckage knocked a hole in her starboard quarter. Likewise, her stern-post being rotten, she lost a pintle, and the helm began to look fifty ways for Sunday. All o' which caused the skipper to lay to, fix up a jury rudder and run up for the nearest island to caulk and repair. But meantime, and before he sighted land, this unfortunate crew kept puttin' on flesh—and the cause of it hid from them all the time—till there wasn't on the ship a pair of smallclothes but had refused duty. Whereby, coming to the island in question, they went ashore, every man Jack in loin-cloths cut out o' the stun-s'le, and the rest of 'em as bare as the back of my hand. Whereby their appearance excited the natives to such a degree, being superstitious, they was set upon and eaten to a man. The moral bein'," concluded Mr. Adams, "that a man lay be brought low by bein' puffed up."