“Who says the old man at the helm of the Yankee nation can’t steer his trick as well as George Washington himself?” cried a sheet-anchor-man.
“But they say he’s a cold-water customer, Bill,” cried another; “and sometimes o’ nights I somehow has a presentation that he’s goin’ to stop our grog.”
“D’ye hear there, fore and aft!” roared the boatswain’s mate at the gangway, “all hands tumble up, and ’bout ship!”
“That’s the talk!” cried the captain of gun No. 1, as, in obedience to the summons, all hands dropped their pipes and crowded toward the ladders, “and that’s what the President must do—go in stays, my lads, and put the Yankee nation on the other tack.”
But these political discussions by no means supplied the staple of conversation for the gossiping smokers of the galley. The interior affairs of the frigate itself formed their principal theme. Rumours about the private life of the Commodore in his cabin; about the Captain, in his; about the various officers in the ward-room; about the reefers in the steerage, and their madcap frolickings, and about a thousand other matters touching the crew themselves; all these—forming the eternally shifting, domestic by-play of a man-of-war—proved inexhaustible topics for our quidnuncs.
The animation of these scenes was very much heightened as we drew nearer and nearer our port; it rose to a climax when the frigate was reported to be only twenty-four hours’ sail from the land. What they should do when they landed; how they should invest their wages; what they should eat; what they should drink; and what lass they should marry—these were the topics which absorbed them.
“Sink the sea!” cried a forecastle man. “Once more ashore, and you’ll never again catch old Boombolt afloat. I mean to settle down in a sail-loft.”
“Cable-tier pinchers blister all tarpaulin hats!” cried a young after-guard’s-man; “I mean to go back to the counter.”
“Shipmates! take me by the arms, and swab up the lee-scuppers with me, but I mean to steer a clam-cart before I go again to a ship’s wheel. Let the Navy go by the board—to sea again, I won’t!”
“Start my soul-bolts, maties, if any more Blue Peters and sailing signals fly at my fore!” cried the Captain of the Head. “My wages will buy a wheelbarrow, if nothing more.”