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Old Cupid carried the Wallingford's ensign, and a sort of harlequinade had been made out of marlinspikes, serving mallets, sail-maker's palms, and fids. The whole was crowned with a plug of tobacco, though I never used the weed, except in segars. Neb had seen processions in town, as well as in foreign countries, and he took care that the present should do himself no discredit.
"Out reefs, my hearties; fore and aft set t'-gallant-sails! stand by to give her the fore-top-mast stun'-sail!" But, Captain Rash, those sails of yours were much safer in the sail-maker's loft. For now, while the heedless craft is bounding over the billows, a black cloud rises out of the sea; the sun drops down from the sky; a horrible mist far and wide spreads over the water.
Nearly all the articles they wanted most were in the after cabin: a quadrant, a chart, canvas and rope, sail-maker's needles, twine indeed, almost everything they could possibly require. They at once placed, ready for packing up, the things which were of the most value to them, such as some of the tools, the quadrant, and chart, a spy-glass, and other articles.
The question surprised me. I was nearly certain that there was not. "Well then, you can say some prayers without one," he continued. "For, Peter, there's no use talking longer about it; we must bury the skipper." Reluctantly I agreed. Jim got a piece of canvas, a sail-maker's needle, and some twine, with a pig of iron ballast which had been used in one of the boats.
Just before daybreak, two of the sail-maker's gang drew near, each with a lantern, carrying some canvas, two large shot, needles, and twine. I knew their errand; for in men-of-war the sail-maker is the undertaker.
Small thanks I gets for my pains; and every one on 'em looks so 'proachful-like, with a sail-maker's needle through his nose. I've been thinkin', old Ringrope, it's all wrong that 'ere last stitch we takes. Depend on't, they don't like it none on 'em." I was standing leaning over a gun, gazing at the two old men.
As the ship had been only two or three days in commission, few seamen had as yet entered; but shortly afterwards they came on board in sufficient numbers; and I have sometimes ascribed the facility with which we got the ship manned, not a little to the attractive agency of the diverting vagabond, recently come from town, the fame of whose tricks soon extended over Portsea; such as catching hold of the end of the sail-maker's ball of twine, and paying the whole overboard, hand over hand, from a secure station in the rigging; or stealing the boatswain's silver call, and letting it drop from the end of the cat-head; or his getting into one of the cabin ports and tearing up the captain's letters, a trick at which even the stately skipper can only laugh.
Starbuck a lance without a pole; a top-maul, and the smallest of the sail-maker's needles. Quick!" Accessory, perhaps, to the impulse dictating the thing he was now about to do, were certain prudential motives, whose object might have been to revive the spirits of his crew by a stroke of his subtile skill, in a matter so wondrous as that of the inverted compasses.
But there is no time here to speak of the spirit-room, a cellar down in the after-hold, where the sailor's "grog" is kept; nor of the cabletiers, where the great hawsers and chains are piled, as you see them at a large ship-chandler's on shore; nor of the grocer's vaults, where tierces of sugar, molasses, vinegar, rice, and flour are snugly stowed; nor of the sail-room, full as a sail-maker's loft ashore piled up with great top-sails and top-gallant-sails, all ready-folded in their places, like so many white vests in a gentleman's wardrobe; nor of the copper and copper-fastened magazine, closely packed with kegs of powder, great-gun and small-arm cartridges; nor of the immense shot-lockers, or subterranean arsenals, full as a bushel of apples with twenty-four-pound balls; nor of the bread-room, a large apartment, tinned all round within to keep out the mice, where the hard biscuit destined for the consumption of five hundred men on a long voyage is stowed away by the cubic yard; nor of the vast iron tanks for fresh water in the hold, like the reservoir lakes at Fairmount, in Philadelphia; nor of the paint-room, where the kegs of white-lead, and casks of linseed oil, and all sorts of pots and brushes, are kept; nor of the armoror's smithy, where the ship's forges and anvils may be heard ringing at times; I say I have no time to speak of these things, and many more places of note.
"Ay, ay, sir!" said Ted, as he came below. "I want a sail-maker's needle," said the skipper glibly. "I've got a rent in this skirt." "I broke the last one yesterday," said Ted, with an evil grin. "Any other needle then," said the skipper, trying to conceal his emotion. "I don't believe there's such a thing aboard the ship," said Ted, who had obeyed the mate's thoughtful injunction. "NOR thread.
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