I really have no time to lose,
For I am thirty-one;
At balls I am too often left
Where spinsters sit in rows;
Why don’t the men propose, mamma?
Why won’t the men propose?
Frederick Marryat, oftener spoken of as Captain Marryat was among the most renowned writers of sea stories, and easily the most humorous of the authors who chose the sea for their fictional setting.
His books are well known in all households, and after Dickens there is probably no English novelist who has caused more real chuckles.
NAUTICAL TERMS
All the sailors were busy at work, and the first lieutenant cried out to the gunner, “Now, Mr. Dispart, if you are ready, we’ll breech these guns.”