Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 23, 2025
Medlycott took great pride in the faultlessness of her domestic arrangements, so far as cleanliness and precise order were concerned. To maintain the whiteness of the pipe-clayed steps before the front door of her Bedford Square mansion was a chief object of her existence; and to gratify her in this particular, Sergeant Hill use daily to leave his premises by the kitchen steps.
"Oh no! but I expect my uniforms I only wear these bottle-greens until they come." "And pray what ship are you going to join?" "The Die-a-maid Captain Thomas Kirkwall Savage." "The Diomede I say, Robinson, a'n't that the frigate in which the midshipmen had four dozen apiece for not having pipe-clayed their weekly accounts on the Saturday?"
At first he merely chattered, or grinned contemptuously at them; or, at worst, snapped at their heels, soiled their fine pipe-clayed trousers, or pulled the cartridges out of their cartouch-boxes, and scattered the powder over the decks; feats for which his rump was sure to smart under the ratan of the indignant sergeant, to whom the "party" made their complaint.
"No, sir, no!" replied they all, very much frightened. "Did I ever give a midshipman four dozen for not having his weekly accounts pipe-clayed; or another five dozen for wearing a scarlet watch riband?" "No, sir," replied they all together. "Did any midshipman ever die on his chest from fatigue?" They again replied in the negative.
His hands were more successful; for he had polished his sword, pipe-clayed his belt, gloves, and the little leather pouch which held his music-cards, and now, with a brush ready, he was performing a task which looked like a puzzle, for he was passing the gilt buttons of his uniform through a hole in a flat stick, and then running them one after another along a slit.
One might have thought he had engaged to dance the minuet. Colonel Stuart met him in a spick-and-span uniform of His Majesty's Foot, cross-belts pipe-clayed white as snow, boots polished until they shone. Such gentlemen were punctilious in war two hundred years ago. "Your solid shot will not pound him much at this range, my good sir," said the lieutenant.
The pipe-clayed bricks on which the andirons rested were next swept clean; the hearth-brush hung up on its nail, and the architect of the edifice stepped back with a satisfied nod. "I have often wished for a glimpse of one of your beautiful fires, Mammy, since I have been in Albany," said Mabel, kindly. "Our rooms and halls are all heated by furnaces.
Those who had come in, soaked and surly, ate their dinner in silence and discomfort and took themselves away, leaving the freshly scrubbed floor as mucky as a moss-hag on the moor. Late in the afternoon a sergeant, risen from the ranks and cocky about it, came in and turned himself out of a dripping greatcoat, dapper and dry in his red tunic, pipe-clayed belt, and winking buttons.
But as to this, the bridegroom's troopers might fill out the tale, and in my heated fancy I could see them grouped beneath the candle-sconces with belts and baldrics fresh pipe-clayed, and shakos doffed, and sabretaches well in front. "A man full-grown a soldier," she had said; and trooper-guests were fitting in such case. From serving in a Catholic land I knew the customs of the Mother Church.
He made a splendid appearance in his white clothes and shirt and pipe-clayed shoes and pith-helmet, being a short, thick-set man with gray hair and a commanding look.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking