“Sir?” said Harry, starting back. “Is not this the morning watch, and is not mine a morning gown?”
But though, in my refined friend’s estimation, nothing could be more appropriate; in the mate’s, it was the most monstrous of incongruities; and the offensive gown and cap were removed.
“It is too bad!” exclaimed Harry to me; “I meant to lounge away the watch in that gown until coffee time;—and I suppose your Hottentot of a mate won’t permit a gentleman to smoke his Turkish pipe of a morning; but by gad, I’ll wear straps to my pantaloons to spite him!”
Oh! that was the rock on which you split, poor Harry! Incensed at the want of polite refinement in the mates and crew, Harry, in a pet and pique, only determined to provoke them the more; and the storm of indignation he raised very soon overwhelmed him.
The sailors took a special spite to his chest, a large mahogany one, which he had had made to order at a furniture warehouse. It was ornamented with brass screw-heads, and other devices; and was well filled with those articles of the wardrobe in which Harry had sported through a London season; for the various vests and pantaloons he had sold in Liverpool, when in want of money, had not materially lessened his extensive stock.
It was curious to listen to the various hints and opinings thrown out by the sailors at the occasional glimpses they had of this collection of silks, velvets, broadcloths, and satins. I do not know exactly what they thought Harry had been; but they seemed unanimous in believing that, by abandoning his country, Harry had left more room for the gamblers. Jackson even asked him to lift up the lower hem of his browsers, to test the color of his calves.
It is a noteworthy circumstance, that whenever a slender made youth, of easy manners and polite address happens to form one of a ship’s company, the sailors almost invariably impute his sea-going to an irresistible necessity of decamping from terra-firma in order to evade the constables.
These white-fingered gentry must be light-fingered too, they say to themselves, or they would not be after putting their hands into our tar. What else can bring them to sea?
Cogent and conclusive this; and thus Harry, from the very beginning, was put down for a very equivocal character.