"Felucca! felucca!" said I, looking across the table at Don Felix. "Pardon me, sir, what felucca were you speaking of?"
"Why, that is more than I can tell you, sir; but she has plundered three London ships off Morant bay within this last week; one of them belonging to me, and in my case the captain and crew were most cruelly treated; but now, when two men-of-war schooners are cruising for her, she has vanished like a spectre."
"Yes," said another of the party; "and the John Shand was boarded yesterday evening by the same vessel off Yallahs, and robbed of a chronometer; but the boarding officer, by way of amende, I suppose, politely handed the captain the Kingston papers of the morning."
"Ho, ho, Master Wilson," thought I.
*****
"Cockadoodle doo—doo—doo!" Never was there such a place as Kingston for the crowing of cocks. In other countries cocks sleep at night and crow in the morning, like respectable birds; but here, confound them, they crow through the whole livelong night; and, towards daydawn, it is one continuous stream of cock-crowing all over the town.
*****
Some days after the transaction already related, Messrs Flamingo and Twig carried me to dine at the Court-House with the officers on duty with the militia Christmas guard. It was an artillery company, in which Don Felix held a commission, that had the guard, the captain of which was a very kind, but roughspun genius. However, his senior lieutenant, Jessamy by name, was a perfect contrast to him, and a deuced handsome fellow; so he made up for it. Quite a Frenchman in his manners and dress, but, so far as I could judge, with what is vulgarly called a "bee in his bonnet." Nevertheless, he was an excellent young man at bottom, although his nonsense, which was rather entertaining at first, became a little de trop when the bottle began to circulate;—for instance, he insisted, after dinner, on showing us the last Parisian step, and then began to jabber French, for display, as it were,—finishing off by asking me who made my coat. Now, I cannot endure people noticing one's externals; so I stared, and gave him no answer at first; but he pinned me to the wall,—so I mentioned my tailor's name—Stultz.
"Ah! the only man in England who can cut; but the German Schneiders who take root in Paris eclipse him entirely. Ah! the German exactitude and Parisian taste combined! Nothing like it, Mr Brail—nothing like it, my dear sir. There, what think you of that fit?" jumping up and showing his back, to which his garment clung like a sign at a shop-door.
I applauded amazingly, as he wriggled himself this way and that.