"Come, my young lad, out with it. Let us hear a bit about the worthy people who took the sin of launching you into the wide ocean. You must have had owners one time or other." This was said by a hearty looking old man, with hair white as snow, and an enormous pair of eyebrows to match.
"Willingly, sir," said I, with an air of the easiest confidence; "I should be but too proud if anything in a history humble as mine is could amuse this honorable company. But the truth is, a life so devoid of interest would be only a tax upon its patience to listen to; and as to my birth, I can give little, indeed no, information. The earliest record of my existence that I possess is from the age of two days and three hours."
"That will do,--do admirably!" chorused the party, who laughed heartily at the gravity with which I spoke, and which to them seemed an earnest of my extreme simplicity. "We shall be quite satisfied with that," cried they again.
"Well, then, gentlemen, thanking you for the indulgence with which you consent to overlook my want of accuracy, I proceed. At the tender age I have mentioned, I was won in a raffle!"
"Won in a raffle! won in a raffle!" screamed one after the other; and amid shouts of laughter the phrase continued to be echoed from end to end of the table. "That beats you hollow, Giles!" "By Jove, how scarce babies must be in the part you come from, if people take tickets for em!" Such were some of the commentaries that broke out amidst the mirth.
"I move," said a dapper little Frenchman who had been a barber and a National Guard once, "I move that the honorable deputy make a statement to the Chamber respecting the interesting fact to which he has alluded."
The motion was carried by acclamation, and I was accordingly induced to ascend the tribune,--a kind of rude pulpit that was brought specially into the room, and stationed at the side of the president's chair; the comments on my personal appearance, age, air, and probable rank, which were made all the while, evidencing the most candid spirit one can well imagine.
"A right-down slick and shrewd 'un, darn me if he ain't!"
"A very wide awake young gemman," quoth number two.
"Il a de 'beaux yeux,' celui-là,"--this was a lady's remark.