“Say, you sailor buckra, who dat you call one black dog, hi!” said he, coming up to my chum in a threatening manner, brandishing his arms and working his head about like a teetotum in a fit. “I’se no niggah slabe, you white trash! I’se free ’Badian born, an’ ’low no man make joke ob me!”
Mick roused up in a minute.
“Faith, ye oogly yaller-faced raskil,” he cried, putting up his fists in the scientific way we had learnt from long practice on board with the gloves under our gymnasium instructor, “Oi’ll knock ye into the middle of nixt Soonday wake, ef ye don’t kape a civil toongue in yer hid an’ put yer owld dhrumsticks behint ye!”
Instead of acting on Mick’s advice, however, the mulatto, screaming with rage, and his whole face distorted with passion, made a wild rush at him, trying to butt him in the stomach.
Chapter Eighteen.
“Reef Topsails!”
“A ring! A ring! Form a ring, all you Actives!” shouted out Mr Jones the signalman, who had come ashore with us, wishing to see the battle between our representative and the darkey conducted in regular shipshape fashion, in accordance with the rules observed in polite pugilistic circles at home. “Form a ring, my lads, and let ’em fight it out fair. If any of them blooming niggers tries to h’interfere, boys, you jest fetch ’em a crack on the shins with yer dancing pumps; it’s no good trying to hit ’em on their nobs, as they’re made of the same stuff of the cocoa-nuts, and you might hit at ’em till doomsday without ever their feelin’ on it, jist the same as if ye were hammerin’ at the watertight bulkhead forrud!”
No sooner said than done.