"I was afraid it would," said Dorothy, sorrowfully; "I s'pose it was something like being at sea in a cornucopia."
"Does a cornucopia have things in it that pinch your legs?" inquired Sir Walter, with an air of great interest.
"Oh, no," said Dorothy.
"Then it wasn't like it at all," said Sir Walter, peevishly.
"It was about as much like it," said the Admiral, "as a pump is like a post-captain"; and he said this in such a positive way that Dorothy didn't like to contradict him. In fact she really didn't know anything about the matter, so she merely said, as politely as she could, "I don't think I know what a post-captain is."
"I don't either," said the Admiral, promptly, "but I can tell you how they behave"; and sitting up in bed, he recited these verses:
Post-captain at the Needles and commander of a crew
On the "Royal Biddy" frigate was Sir Peter Bombazoo;
His mind was full of music, and his head was full of tunes,
And he cheerfully exhibited on pleasant afternoons.
He could whistle, on his fingers, an invigorating reel,
And could imitate a piper on the handles of the wheel;
He could play in double octaves, too, all up and down the rail,
Or rattle off a rondo on the bottom of a pail.