“Your fifty-pound bill,” said I. “The bank must be open.”
The major-general looked at me.
It was a good thing for the giver of the IOU that the mirth the whole transaction created did not permit the old admiral to be so severe with his “whys,” as he would have been. He, however, told the culprit’s captain, whom he had just brought on shore in the barge, to give me the twenty shillings, and to charge it against him, and then to give him an airing at the mast-head till sunset; telling him, at the same time, he might feel himself very happy at not being disrated and turned before the mast.
I was departing, very well satisfied with this summary method of administering justice, when I found that I was not altogether to escape, for the old gentleman commenced opening a broadside upon me, for not wearing the Admiralty uniform. Lieutenant Farmer, however, came very kindly to my rescue, and offered the admiral a sufficient explanation.
I was then directed to the Eos’ boat, the coxswain and a couple of men went with me for my luggage, and in less than half an hour I was being rowed down the Medway towards the ship. As we passed by what I looked upon as an immense and terrifically lofty seventy-four, I looked up, and descried Major-General Cheeks slowly climbing up the newly-tarred main topmast rigging, “like a snail unwillingly,” to the topmast cross-trees. It was a bitterly cold day, at the end of November, and there is no doubt but that his reflections were as bitter as the weather. Practical jokes have sometimes very bad practical consequences.
Chapter Twenty Nine.
Ralph is shipped, hulked, and overcome—A dark hall and an ebony servitor—A tailor’s politeness, and a master’s mate, who sighs to be mated yet does not see that he is outmatched.
I found the Eos all rigged and strong in the breeze, with the not very agreeable aroma of dockyard paint. The ship’s company was not, however, on board of her. They were hulked on board of the Pegasus. A very brief introduction to the officers of the watch, and I was shown down with my sea-chest, my shore-going trunk, and quadrant, cocked-hat, etcetera, to the midshipmen’s berth in the hulk. One of the after-guard performed for me the office of gentleman-usher. It was a gloomy, foggy, chilly day, and the damp of the atmosphere was mingled with the reeking, dank, animal effluvia that came up, thick and almost tangible, from the filthy receptacle of crowded hundreds.