“Poor stuff!” he exclaimed. “Why, it ain’t even that. Ne’er an omnibus driver but could do better. How can they pull away if they’ve got their handspikes poised? and what’s the windlass got to do with pulling away? And hear this—
‘If ’tis storm, why we bustle; if calm, why we booze,
All taut from the stem to the stern.’
Booze in a calm! Why, there’s naught going but liquor in these blooming rhymes. And ‘All taut from the stem to the stern’—did the chap who wrote that have the least glimmerin’ shadder of a notion of what he meant? But stop a bit; here’s a song called ‘Poor Jack’—
‘Though the tempests topgallant-masts smack-smooth should smite,
And shiver each splinter of wood,
Clear the decks, stow the yards, and house everything tight,
And under the foresail we scud.’
What d’ye think of that, boys?” said he, addressing the others, who were on the broad grin. “Did ye ever hear of a topgallant-mast going smack-smooth? One lives and larns. I always thought that was a job for the lower masts. And, I say, how d’ye relish stowing the yards? He can’t mean atop of the booms, for he keeps the foresail on her to scud with; but perhaps the foreyard’s stowed too, and the reefed course is set on the flying jib-stay. But follow this—
‘For,’ says he, ‘d’ye mind ye, let ...’
—something; here’s a word left out—
‘...’ere so oft,
Take the toplifts of sailors aback!’
Does he mean topping-lift? If so, that’s a queer sort of thing to be taken aback. Why, if he goes on in this fashion he’ll be reefing the mainsheet next.”
All this was exceedingly amusing to me. It was too good, indeed, not to encourage.