“He! he!” sniggled Tom Stewart, while Don Stingo and Paddy Burns cackled incredulously; but, at the same moment, Ring Finger Bill and Nimble Jack, two jet-black persons, in loose striped gingham shirts and bare feet, with an attempt at a grave expression of thick-lipped coffee-coolers, the whites of their eyes turned up with becoming decorum, and preceded by the old twig of a clerk, who seemed to crackle in the sea-breeze as he again hung himself, stern on, to his stool of a trunk, entered the cool counting-house, bearing trays, fruits, and bottles, which they methodically arranged on the large table.
“Massa! him want small, red, plump snapper, make mizzible brile?” said Nimble Jack. “S’pose Massa Ossifa him pick shell of land-crab, wid crisp pepper for salad?”
“No, no! Put those cool water-monkeys on the table and be gone! Come, Clinker, take a bite with us!”
Leaving this pleasant party to sip their claret and water, and nibble their midday food, while they rambled back to the past or schemed into the future, we will return to the frigate.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE COMMANDER OF THE “ROSALIE.”
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“The handsomest fellow, Heaven bless him! Setting the girls all wild to possess him, With his dark mustache and his hazel eyes, And cigars in those pretty lips––” “That girl who fain would choose a mate, Should ne’er in fondness fail her, May thank her lucky stars if Fate Should splice her to a sailor.” |
“The ‘Rosalie’s’ gig coming alongside, sir,” reported the quarter-master to the officer of the watch.
“Very well. A boatswain’s mate and two side-boys. Mr. Rat, have the barge manned, and send her on shore for the commodore. Mr. Martin, tell the boatswain to call all hands to furl awnings.”