"You're picking up German very fast."
"Yes, sir; it's a picking me up, sir. I'm learning fast, sir; so as to be useful to you, sir."
This quite satisfied Puffeigh, who began to look upon his new coxswain as a treasure, and a very model of circumspection and perfection in his line.
Jerry, on his part, would invent the most astonishing yarns to get sent down to the store. Sometimes it was, "her father was in the last time, and he could not get a chance to speak to her;" at others "her mother was there."
"What is her mother like?" demanded Puffeigh.
"She's more fatter and bigger than the young lady," replied Thompson. The captain did not ask further questions.
The coxswain's courtship was conducted upon peculiar principles. He knew the fraulein disliked to exert herself, so, upon entering the little parlour at the back of the store where he usually found her calmly reclining in a rocking-chair, he would at once proceed to kiss her in a most vigorous manner. She, not at all disliking his attention, gazed upon him with a calmly-tickled air; and when he was tired would playfully slap him on the face, and declare he "vos ein goot veller."
After a pause, he proceeded again to salute her, showering the kisses with sounding smack upon her wax-like features, when a smile would extend over her visage like a ripple of air on a pan of oil, and she would ejaculate, "Scherry, mein hubscher matrose, runs avay vrom der schips und marrys me," to which Jerry would reply with another consignment of kisses,—"Yaw, yaw, Wall-ker;" from this the fraulein imagined he would desert, and marry her when the ship was gone. "I loves you vorse den nopodys else, Scherry," gurgled his fair seducer. This was the signal for more kisses, and a fervent avowal of affection on the part of the coxswain.
One morning Captain Puffeigh informed his valet, in great confidence that "their destination on leaving the Cape would be the East Indies:" so during the day Jerry broke the news to his enslaver, and declared it would be madness for him to attempt to run away.
The information was a tremendous blow to Miss Wallburg, who replied, "I veels so pad at ter news, that I almost bust with deers." This catastrophe was averted by a scientific application of kisses on the part of her lover.