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"I ca'ant rightly tall ye because I don't justly knaw, Abe. They said this here Mr. Lucy Love-me Lucy they called him in the ward-room got messin about a'ter Diamond's gal. But anyways there it were. Diamond struck him struck his officer." "What happened?" "Why, sir; flogged round the Fleet." A man spat noisily on the deck. "Maybe you've never seen a man flogged round the Fleet?" "Never."
"The ward-room steward told me he was come of the best blood in England," was my friend's reply: "Eton and 'Arrow bred; and might have been a bar'net!" "No, but to look at?" I corrected him. "The same as you or me," was the uncompromising answer: "not much to look at. I didn't know he was a gen'lem'n; but then, I never see him cleaned up." "How was that?" I cried.
Faring sumptuously in the ward-room; sleek and round, his ebon face fairly polished with content: ever gay and hilarious; ever ready to laugh and joke, that African slave was actually envied by many of the seamen. There were times when I almost envied him myself. Lemsford once envied him outright, "Ah, Guinea!" he sighed, "you have peaceful times; you never opened the book I read in."
Ordinarily, the appearance of these things for the Purser and other ward-room gentlemen occasioned no surprise; for almost every day some bundle or other is coming off for them, especially for the Purser; and, as the master-at-arms was always present on these occasions, it was an easy matter for him to hurry the smuggled liquor out of sight, and, under pretence of carrying the box or bundle down to the Purser's room, hide it away upon his own premises.
By being advanced to the dignity of a peerage in the Ward-room, Science and Learning were ennobled in the person of this Professor, even as divinity was honoured in the Chaplain enjoying the rank of a spiritual peer. Every other afternoon, while at sea, the Professor assembled his pupils on the half-deck, near the long twenty-four pounders.
In this region, where all the plants are strange, and many of them beautiful, it is easy work to form a collection. With a Kroo-boy to carry my book, I cut leaves and flowers as they came to hand. Governor Roberts, General Lewis, and Doctor Day, dined with us in the ward-room. The Governor is certainly no ordinary person.
Going farther forward, on the same level we come to the crew's department, part of which is occupied by the cooking-establishment, where all sorts of cooking is going on for the officers and men. Through the whole of this space, ward-room and all, there is barely room to stand upright, without the hat on.
But it having been rumoured abroad that this journal was to be ominously entitled "The Cruise of the Neversink, or a Paixhan shot into Naval Abuses;" and it having also reached the ears of the Ward-room that the work contained reflections somewhat derogatory to the dignity of the officers, the volume was seized by the master-at-arms, armed with a warrant from the Captain.
"The Professor" was the title bestowed upon the erudite gentleman who conducted this seminary, and by that title alone was he known throughout the ship. He was domiciled in the Ward-room, and circulated there on a social par with the Purser, Surgeon, and other non-combatants and Quakers.
Just before going down over the side he apologised for the non- appearance of "Captain Dubosc" upon the plea that that gentleman was confined to his hammock with a severe attack of dysentery; but if the officers of the Daphne would honour the estate's ward-room with their presence at dinner that evening Monsieur Le Breton and his brother officers would be "enchanted."
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