—But this digression is leading me from the narrative. My Lord Chatterino turned his head a little on one side as we were passing, and I was deliberating whether, under the circumstances, it would be well-bred to remind him of our old acquaintance, when the question was settled by the decision of Captain Poke, who placed himself in such a position that it was no easy matter to get round him, through him, or over him—or who laid himself what he called “athwart hawse.”
“Good morning, my lord,” said the straightforward seaman, who generally went at a subject as he went at a seal. “A fine warm day; and the smell of the land, after so long a passage, is quite agreeable to the nose, whatever its ups and downs may be to the legs.”
The companions of the young peer looked amazed; and some of them, I thought, notwithstanding gravity and earnestness are rather characteristic of the monikin physiognomy, betrayed a slight disposition to laugh. Not so with my Lord Chatterino himself.
He examined us a moment through a glass, and then seemed suddenly, and on the whole, agreeably struck at seeing us.
“How, Goldencalf!” he cried in surprise, “you in Leaphigh! This is indeed an unexpected satisfaction; for it will now be in my power to prove some of the facts that I am telling my friends, by actual observation. Here are two of the humans, gents, of whom I was but this moment giving you some account—”
Observing a disposition to merriment in his associates, he continued, looking exceedingly grave:—
“Restrain yourselves, gentlemen, I pray you. These are very worthy people, I do assure you, in their own way, and are not at all to be ridiculed. I scarcely know, even in our own marine, a better or a bolder navigator than this honest seaman; and as for the one in the parti-colored skin, I will take upon myself to say, that he is really a person of some consideration in his own little circle. He is, I believe, a member of par—par—par—am I right, Sir John?—a member of—”
“Parliament, my lord—an M.P.”
“Ay—I thought I had it—an M.P., or a member of Parliament, in his own country, which, I dare say now, is some such thing among his people, as a public proclaimer of those laws which come from his majesty’s eldest first cousin of the masculine gender, may be among us. Some such thing—eh—now—eh—is it not, Sir John?”
“I dare say it is, my lord.”