“Take off his coat!” roared Mutchison.
“Oh, don’t touch me with thuch thocking dirty handth; I’ll let you have my coat,” said the poor fellow, carefully removing the tea-rose from his button-hole, and handing over the garment, “but leave me the retht of my clotheth, do, now, general, and I’ll thend you lotht of money from Wathington.”
“Take off his trousers! You see he can’t do it for himself!” thundered Mutchison.
The black-muzzled approached to obey.
“No, don’t! don’t come too near me! You are thuch a thocking nuithanth!” cried the exquisite, shrinking in disgust. “I will give you my panth, and they are quite new—bought for thith occathon. But leave me my under garmenth. Do, general. Do leave me my under garmenth. For dethenthy’s sake, you know. Do, now, general!” pleaded the poor fellow, with tears in his eyes.
“I am no more a general than you are a man, you nincompoop. I am one of Colonel Goldsborough’s captains, that’s all. Here, Covington, peel him—peel him!”
“Oh, no, no, no! don’t touch me with thothe awful handth! Take all—take everything, mitherable man that I am!” wept the dandy, throwing off one garment after another, to the great amusement of his companions, who, having completed their exchange of dress, now forgot their own miseries in watching the ludicrous distress of Billingcoo.
When, with shivering frame and chattering teeth, he at length approached the mound of rags to clothe himself, and began to poke about in it with a stick to find something possible to put on, suddenly burst into a flood of tears, exclaiming:
“I wouldn’t mind their being tho wagged, but they are tho thockingly unclean, and tho—tho—inthecty!”
“Never mind their being insecty, Billingcoo. There are worse misfortunes at sea,” repeated Allison.