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Updated: May 27, 2025
Alas, Selvagee! there was no getting the lavender out of you. But Selvagee was no fool. Theoretically he understood his profession; but the mere theory of seamanship forms but the thousandth part of what makes a seaman. You cannot save a ship by working out a problem in the cabin; the deck is the field of action.
Next day, fore and aft, the whole frigate smelled like a lady's toilet; the very tar-buckets were fragrant; and from the mouth of many a grim, grizzled old quarter-gunner came the most fragrant of breaths. The amazed Lieutenants went about snuffing up the gale; and, for once. Selvagee had no further need to flourish his perfumed hand-kerchief.
Though you may go ashore, now and then, at Cadiz and Palermo; for every day so spent among oranges and ladies, you will have whole months of rains and gales. And even thus did Selvagee prove it. But with all the intrepid effeminacy of your true dandy, he still continued his Cologne-water baths, and sported his lace-bordered handkerchiefs in the very teeth of a tempest.
So much for the derivation of the name which the sailors applied to the Lieutenant. From what sea-alcove, from what mermaid's milliner's shop, hast thou emerged, Selvagee! with that dainty waist and languid cheek? What heartless step-dame drove thee forth, to waste thy fragrance on the salt sea-air?
The voice of Mad Jack always a belfry to hear now resounded like that famous bell of England, Great Tom of Oxford. As for Selvagee, he wore his sword with a jaunty air, and his servant daily polished the blade. But why this contrast between the forecastle and the quarter-deck, between the man-of-war's-man and his officer?
The sailors do not laugh at him outright; but of dark nights they jeer, when they hearken to that mantuamaker's voice ordering a strong pull at the main brace, or hands by the halyards! Sometimes, by way of being terrific, and making the men jump, Selvagee raps out an oath; but the soft bomb stuffed with confectioner's kisses seems to burst like a crushed rose-bud diffusing its odours. Selvagee!
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