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In pursuance of his instructions, the captain now demanded of the officers and petty officers the log-books and journals which they had kept, and which were sealed up for the inspection of the Admiralty. The officers and men were also especially charged not to say where they had been until they had received the permission of the Lords of the Admiralty.
There was at least one of our crew who experienced this emotion as our staunch little craft turned her nose to the blue water, and with all sail set and lee rail almost under water, leaped away from the petty restrictions of the shore into the practically limitless expanse of the Atlantic. In a week we were on the fishing ground and sentiment gave way to business.
No sooner had the marriage been annulled than his titanic ambition leaped, as it always did, to a tremendous pinnacle. He would wed. He would have children. But he would wed no petty princess.
He was at length, however, induced to relinquish all right to a share of the contingent profits. But, in his manner of doing so, he showed a mercenary spirit, better becoming a petty trader than a high officer of the Crown.
When his too prudent counsellors told him that if he advanced he would be in Newgate in a fortnight, he still persisted in pressing his own advice. Perhaps he thought that where the stake was so great, and the chance of success not too forbidding, failure might as well end in Newgate as in the purlieus of petty foreign courts.
You are fretting and frowning, with your eyes fixed on your own petty fortunes, while all the gigantic ages mock you. Day by day you give pain to your own mind and body; you hope against hope; you trust to be remembered, and you fancy that you may perchance hear what men will say of you when you are gone. All in vain.
There woke an increasing buzz of shouts and cries astern. It culminated presently in the crack of a revolver, a shriek of pain, and a wild British cheer. Then all over the din a loud, insistent whistle shrilled. The sailors forward rushed for their stacked arms, and formed in ranks with the speed of magic. A petty officer shouted a command, and down the deck they started at the double. "Halt!"
Barlow said: "These little creatures already emulate their sisters in associating some petty kindness with their own pleasures. The act is trifling, but the habit is good; as is every habit which helps to take us out of self, which teaches us to transfer our attention from our own gratification to the wants or the pleasures of another."
"I've got just fifty-five cents left, and one of the nickels is punched. I can see my finish if he doesn't show up to-day." The chums soon discovered that they were not the only boys from the Navy in town. By ones and twos other bluejackets made their appearance on the water-front. But there was not even a petty officer assigned to the port to meet them.
Bloomfield himself, be it said to his credit, allowed no petty considerations of party rivalry to influence him in sending in the best men at the right time.
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