Chorus. Then fill up a bumper, dear woman's our toast, Our comfort in sorrow—in pleasure our boast.
Drink, drink to dear woman, whose exquisite form Was never design'd to encounter the storm, Yet should sickness assail us, or trouble o'ercast, Here's woman, dear woman, man's friend to the last.
Chorus. Then fill up a bumper, dear woman's our toast, Our comfort in sorrow—in pleasure our boast."
As in duty bound, this song elicited great applause, and Nugent declared he should most certainly avail himself of his lordship's proposal for inserting it in his book. "But you have done nothing, Mr. Nugent," said the captain. "You say you want incident and character. You have already taken the frigate for your text;—there's the master now, a perfect character."
"For the love of good old port," exclaimed Parallel, as if alarmed, "let me beg of you not to gibbet me in your consarn. But I'm not afraid of it; book-making requires some head-piece; there's nothing to be done without a head, nor ever has been."
"I must differ with you there, Mr. Parallel," said Seymour unobtrusively; "for I myself saw a very difficult thing done literally without a head.
"Galvanised, I suppose," uttered the doctor in a tone of inquiry; "the power of the battery is wonderful."
"There assuredly was a battery, doctor," responded the lieutenant, laughing; "and a very heavy one too. But the event I'm speaking of had no connexion with galvanism: it was sheer muscular motion."
"Out with it, Seymour!"—"Let's have it by all means!"—"It will be an incident for Nugent!"—"Out with it!" burst forth simultaneously from all.
"It certainly is curious," said the first lieutenant, assuming much gravity of countenance, "and happened when I was junior luff of the old Sharksnose. We were running into Rio Janeiro man-o'-war fashion, with a pennant as long as a purser's account at the masthead, and a spanking ensign hoisted at the gaff-end, with a fly that would have swept all the sheep off of the Isle of Wight. Away we gallop'd along, when a shot from Santa Cruz, the three-deck'd battery at the entrance, came slap into our bows. 'Tell him we're pretty well, thanky,' shouted the skipper; and our jolly first, who took his meaning, literally pointed the fokstle gun, clapp'd the match to the priming, and off went the messenger, which struck the sentry, who was pacing his post, right between the shoulders, and whipt off his head as clean as you would snap a carrot; he was a stout-made powerful-looking man, and by sheer muscular motion, as I said before, his head flew up from his body at least a fathom and a half, and actually descended upon the point of his bayonet, where it stuck fast, and the unfortunate fellow walked the whole length of the rampart in that way; nor was it till he got to the turn, and was steering round to come back again, that he discovered the loss of his head, when, according to the most approved practice in similar surgical cases, he fell to the ground. It was sheer muscular motion, gentlemen,—sheer muscular motion."