“Don’t mind that old fellow,” said the auctioneer. “How much for the jacket, my noble tars?”
“Jacket;” cried a dandy bone polisher of the gun-room. “The sail-maker was the tailor, then. How many fathoms of canvas in it, Purser’s Steward?”
“How much for this jacket?” reiterated the auctioneer, emphatically.
“Jacket, do you call it!” cried a captain of the hold.
“Why not call it a white-washed man-of-war schooner? Look at the port-holes, to let in the air of cold nights.”
“A reg’lar herring-net,” chimed in Grummet.
“Gives me the fever nagur to look at it,” echoed a mizzen-top-man.
“Silence!” cried the auctioneer. “Start it now—start it, boys; anything you please, my fine fellows! it must be sold. Come, what ought I to have on it, now?”
“Why, Purser’s Steward,” cried a waister, “you ought to have new sleeves, a new lining, and a new body on it, afore you try to shove it off on a greenhorn.”
“What are you, ‘busin’ that ’ere garment for?” cried an old sheet-anchor-man. “Don’t you see it’s a ‘uniform mustering jacket’—three buttons on one side, and none on t’other?”