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Sometimes the mate was a person of artistic taste, and in that case they would be given bucket strops or man ropes to graft, or turkheads and grafting to work on to some deck arrangement or yardarm, and bunt gaskets to work with marline.
It is doubtful whether many had not omitted to learn to shave themselves, or to provide razors or strops, or even scissors. Then as to baking bread, or cooking the humblest meal, they were equally at a loss.
Next, two stout rope strops were passed through the ringbolts by which the boat was suspended from the tackles and one bight passed through the other and secured in place by a well- greased toggle, or piece of wood capable of being easily and quickly withdrawn; and finally the bights thus formed were passed over the hooks of the blocks, the tackles, were boused taut and made fast again, and the temporary supports were cast off, thus leaving the boat once more suspended by the tackles.
The great difficulty that we now anticipated was that of unhooking the falls with certainty and promptitude the moment that the boats should reach the water; but our captain provided for that by slinging the boats by strops and toggles attached to the ordinary fall-blocks.
The shaver figures as a sort of Alastor, seeking the ideal setter of razors, as Shelley's Alastor sought ideal beauty in the neighbourhood of Afghanistan, and in the very home of the Central Asian Question. No razor should be condemned till it has been "stropped" well and carefully. And this brings us to the great topic of strops. Some say that soldiers' old buff belts make the best strops.
The first action of an Arab when he dismounts at a halt upon the march, and sits beneath a tree, is to draw his sword; and after trying both edges with his thumb, he carefully strops the blade to and fro upon his shield until a satisfactory proof of the edge is made by shaving the hair off his arm, after which it is returned to the sheath.
"Then if master means to talk more to Don Amasa," said the servant, "why not let Don Amasa sit by master in the cuddy, and master can talk, and Don Amasa can listen, while Babo here lathers and strops." "Yes," said Captain Delano, not unpleased with this sociable plan, "yes, Don Benito, unless you had rather not, I will go with you." "Be it so, Señor."
Bimeby, we hear steps on de peazzer, en yer come a couple er young fellers wid strops on der shoulders, en der sodes a draggin' on de flo', en der spurrers a rattlin'. I won't say I wuz skeer'd," said Uncle Remus, as though endeavoring to recall something he failed to remember, "I won't say I wuz skeer'd, kaze I wuzzent; but I wuz took'n wid a mighty funny feelin' in de naberhood er de gizzard.
You heard of nothing, wherever you went, but of Belinda Portman, and Belinda Portman's accomplishments: Belinda Portman, and her accomplishments, I'll swear, were as well advertised as Packwood's razor strops." "Mrs. Stanhope overdid the business, I think," resumed the gentleman who began the conversation: "girls brought to the hammer this way don't go off well.
After he had sailed for India there were found in his chambers between fifty and sixty strops, hacked into strips and splinters, and razors without beginning or end. About the same period he hurt his hand, and was reduced to send for a barber. After the operation, he asked what was to pay. "Oh, Sir," said the man, "whatever you usually give the person who shaves you."
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