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"Why, yes, you were a little apt to bend your duds wrong for the first month or so," said the master; "I remember you got the marine's scraper on your head, once, in your hurry to bury a dead man! Then you never looked as if you belonged to the ship, so long as those cursed black knee-breeches lasted!
I had seen little enough of him; but enough to make me able to swear to him anywhere, even in a marine's uniform, and in this sweltering country. 'Faces once seen, especially in excitement, are apt to return upon the memory in cases of fever, quoth the doctor, sententiously.
The soldier's offer was kindly meant, but rather clumsily timed, at least so thought Jack; for though he inclined his head in acknowledgment of the attention, and instinctively touched his hat, when spoken to by an officer, he made no reply, till out of the marine's hearing, when he laughed, or rather chuckled out to the people near him, "Does the good gentleman suppose I'll take a glass of grog for saving a boy's life?"
"Go," said I, "and complain. If the first lieutenant says you were fighting, tell the captain you were only showing how the first lieutenant pummelled the men last night when they were hoisting the topsails, and the way he cut the marine's head, when he knocked him down the hatchway."
Look back into the records of the Minister of Marine's office, and you will find that, while the squadron was nearly reduced to a state of starvation, provisions were actually shipped at Valparaiso, apparently for the navy, but were consigned to Don Luiz de Cruz, and disposed of in such a way as to reflect eternal reproach and disgrace.
"Go," said I, "and complain. If the first lieutenant says you were fighting, tell the captain you were only showing how the first lieutenant pummelled the men last night when they were hoisting the topsails, and the way he cut the marine's head, when he knocked him down the hatchway."
"We acquitted you all right last month." "Justifiable homicide," said Gadsden. "Don't you remember?" "Twins?" said Shotgun, drowsily. "Oh yes, mine. Why " He opened on us his blue eyes that looked about as innocent as Aqua Marine's, and he grew more awake. Then he blushed deeply, face and forehead. "I was not coming to this kind of thing," he explained. "But she wanted the twins to get something."
Passengers, Alderman Van Beverout, of the second ward of the City of New-York, in Her Majesty's province of the same name; Oloff Van Staats, Esq. commonly called the Patroon of Kinderhook, of the same colony; and a qualmish-looking old chap, in a sort of marine's jacket, who answers when hailed as Francis. A rum set taken altogether, though they seem to suit the Captain's fancy. Mem.
This course was succeeded by another still more unworthy, the ministers so far forgetting the dignity of their position, as to write or cause to be written against me a series of scurrilous articles in the newspapers under the feigned signature of "Curioso," these containing matters which could only have come from the Minister of Marine's office; but as I was able to reply to anonymous attacks through the same channel, I took care that the refutation signally recoiled on the writers, who, finding the course pursued more detrimental to their objects than to mine, relinquished this mode of attack.
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