"Well, I think, Mr. Saunders, they isn't alike as much as they might be 'nother."
"Not more so than wenison and pig. Perfectly correct, sir; for this cabin is a lobskous as regards deportment and character. I set all the Effinghams down as tip-tops, or, A No. 1, as Mr. Leach calls the ship; and then Mr. Sharp and Mr. Blunt are quite the gentlemen. Nothing is easier, Mr. Toast, than to tell a gentleman; and as you have set up a new profession,--in which I hope, for the credit of the colour, you will be prosperous,--it is well worth your while to know how this is done, especially as you need never expect much from a passenger, that is not a true gentleman, but trouble. There is Mr. John Effingham, in particular; his man says he never anticipates change, and if a coat confines his arm, he repudiates it on the spot."
"Well, it must be a satisfaction to serve such a companion, I think Mr. Dodge, sir, quite a feller."
"Your taste, Toast, is getting to be observable, and by cultivating it, you will soon be remarkable for a knowledge of mankind. Mr. Dodge, as you werry justly insinuate, is not werry refined, or particularly well suited to figure in genteel society."
"And yet he seems attached to it Mr. Saunders, for he has purposed to establish five or six societies since we sailed."
"Werry true, sir; but then every society is not genteel. When we get back to New York, Toast, I must see and get you into a better set than the one you occupied when we sailed. You will not do yet for our circle, which is altogether conclusive; but you might be elevated. Mr. Dodge has been electioneering with me, to see if we cannot inwent a society among the steerage-passengers for the abstinence of liquors, and another for the perpetration of the morals and religious principles of our forefathers. As for the first, Toast, I told him it was sufficiently indurable to be confined in a hole like the steerage, without being percluded from the consolation of a little drink; and as for the last, it appeared to me that such a preposition inwolwed an attack on liberty of conscience."
"There you give'd him, sir, quite as good as he sent," returned the steward's mate, chuckling, or perhaps sniggering would be a word better suited to his habits of cachinnation, "and I should have been glad to witness his confusion. It seems to me, Mr. Saunders, that Mr. Dodge loves to get up his societies in support of liberty and religion, that he may predominate over both by his own inwentions."
Saunders laid his long yellow finger on the broad flat nose of his mate, with an air of approbation, as he replied,
"Toast, you have hit his character as pat as I touch your Roman. He is a man fit to make proselytes among the wulgar and Irish,"--the Hibernian peasant and the American negro are sworn enemies--"but quite unfit for anything respectable or decent. Were it not for Sir George, I would scarcely descend to clean his state-room."
"What is your sentiments, Mr. Saunders, respecting Sir George?"