“Don’t Sir me, Sir! You took your own passage. You have a right to be sick—You’ve a right to go to the side every five minutes—you’ve a right to DIE of it! But it’s the reverse with me—I have no right of the sort!”
“WHAT RIGHT HAVE YOU IN MY STEEL TRAP?”
“O certainly not, Sir,” said the pomposity, offended in his turn. “You are indubitably the best judge of your own privileges. I only beg to be allowed to remark, that where I felt I had so little right, I should hesitate to intrude myself.” So saying, he bowed very formally, and commenced his retreat to the cabin, while the Skipper pretended to examine the compass very minutely. In fact our Original had met with a chokepear. The fat man’s answer was too much for him, being framed on a principle clean contrary to his own peculiar system of logic. The more he tried to unravel its meaning, the more it got entangled. He didn’t like it, without knowing why; and he quite disagreed with it, though ignorant of its purport. He looked up at the funnel—and at the flag—and at the deck,—and down the companion stairs,—and then he wound up all by a long shake of his head, as mysterious as Lord Burleigh’s, at the astonished man at the wheel. His mind seemed made up. He buttoned his coat up to the very chin, as if to secure himself to himself, and never opened his lips again till the vessel touched the quay at Holyhead. The Captain then attempted a final apology—but it was interrupted in the middle.
“Enough said, Sir—quite enough. If you’ve only done your duty, you’ve no right to beg pardon—and I’ve no right to ask it. All I mean to say is, here am I in Holyhead instead of Dublin. I don’t care what that fat fellow says—who don’t understand his own rights. I stick to all I said before. I have no right to be up in the Moon, have I? Of course not—and I’ve no more right to stand on this present quay, than I have to be up in the Moon!”
PATRONAGE.
THE authenticity of the following letter will, probably, be disputed. The system of patronage to which it refers, is one very likely to shock the prejudices of serious sober-minded persons, who will naturally refuse to credit such practical anachronisms as the superannuation of sucklings. Goldsmith, it is true, has mentioned certain Fortunatuses as being born with silver ladles in their mouths; but it would be easier to suppose a child thus endowed with a whole service of plate than to fancy one invested with a service of years. The most powerful imagination would be puzzled to reconcile an Ex-Speakership with an Infant untaught to lisp; or to recognise a retired Bow-street runner in a nursling unable to walk. The existence of such very advanced posts for the Infantry is, however, affirmed; but with what truth, from my total want of political experience, I am unable to judge. Mr. Wordsworth, indeed, who says that “the child is father of the man,” seems to aim a quiz at the practice; and possibly the nautical phrase of “getting a good birth,” may refer to such prosperous nativities. For the rest, grown gentlemen have unquestionably been thrust, sometimes, into public niches to which they were as ill adapted as Mr. D.; the measures taken by Patrons not leading invariably, like Stultz’s, to admirable fits. But the Lady waits to speak her mind.
JACK PUDDING.
(COPY).