In due time all hands were again summoned round the main-mast; the Purser’s steward mounted his post, and the ceremony began. Meantime, I lingered out of sight, but still within hearing, on the gun-deck below, gazing up, un-perceived, at the scene.
As it is now so long ago, I will here frankly make confession that I had privately retained the services of a friend—Williams, the Yankee pedagogue and peddler—whose business it would be to linger near the scene of the auction, and, if the bids on the jacket loitered, to start it roundly himself; and if the bidding then became brisk, he was continually to strike in with the most pertinacious and infatuated bids, and so exasperate competition into the maddest and most extravagant overtures.
A variety of other articles having been put up, the white jacket was slowly produced, and, held high aloft between the auctioneer’s thumb and fore-finger, was submitted to the inspection of the discriminating public.
Here it behooves me once again to describe my jacket; for, as a portrait taken at one period of life will not answer for a later stage; much more this jacket of mine, undergoing so many changes, needs to be painted again and again, in order truly to present its actual appearance at any given period.
A premature old age had now settled upon it; all over it bore melancholy sears of the masoned-up pockets that had once trenched it in various directions. Some parts of it were slightly mildewed from dampness; on one side several of the buttons were gone, and others were broken or cracked; while, alas! my many mad endeavours to rub it black on the decks had now imparted to the whole garment an exceedingly untidy appearance. Such as it was, with all its faults, the auctioneer displayed it.
“You, venerable sheet-anchor-men! and you, gallant fore-top-men! and you, my fine waisters! what do you say now for this superior old jacket? Buttons and sleeves, lining and skirts, it must this day be sold without reservation. How much for it, my gallant tars of Columbia? say the word, and how much?”
“My eyes!” exclaimed a fore-top-man, “don’t that ’ere bunch of old swabs belong to Jack Chase’s pet? Aren’t that the white jacket?”
“The white jacket!” cried fifty voices in response; “the white jacket!” The cry ran fore and aft the ship like a slogan, completely overwhelming the solitary voice of my private friend Williams, while all hands gazed at it with straining eyes, wondering how it came among the bags of deceased mariners.
“Ay, noble tars,” said the auctioneer, “you may well stare at it; you will not find another jacket like this on either side of Cape Horn, I assure you. Why, just look at it! How much, now? Give me a bid—but don’t be rash; be prudent, be prudent, men; remember your Purser’s accounts, and don’t be betrayed into extravagant bids.”
“Purser’s Steward!” cried Grummet, one of the quarter-gunners, slowly shifting his quid from one cheek to the other, like a ballast-stone, “I won’t bid on that ’ere bunch of old swabs, unless you put up ten pounds of soap with it.”