Chapter 21 - Page 2

Indian Ocean.

"Why," said Larry, talking through his nose, as usual, "in Madagasky
there, they don't wear any togs at all, nothing but a bowline round the
midships; they don't have no dinners, but keeps a dinin' all day off fat
pigs and dogs; they don't go to bed any where, but keeps a noddin' all
the time; and they gets drunk, too, from some first rate arrack they
make from cocoa-nuts; and smokes plenty of 'baccy, too, I tell ye. Fine
country, that! Blast Ameriky, I say!"

To tell the truth, this Larry dealt in some illiberal insinuations
against civilization.

"And what's the use of bein' snivelized!" said he to me one night during
our watch on deck; "snivelized chaps only learns the way to take on
'bout life, and snivel. You don't see any Methodist chaps feelin'
dreadful about their souls; you don't see any darned beggars and pesky
constables in Madagasky, I tell ye; and none o' them kings there gets
their big toes pinched by the gout. Blast Ameriky, I say."

Indeed, this Larry was rather cutting in his innuendoes.

"Are you now, Buttons, any better off for bein' snivelized?" coming
close up to me and eying the wreck of my gaff-topsail-boots very
steadfastly. "No; you ar'n't a bit--but you're a good deal worse for it,
Buttons. I tell ye, ye wouldn't have been to sea here, leadin' this
dog's life, if you hadn't been snivelized--that's the cause why, now.
Snivelization has been the ruin on ye; and it's spiled me complete; I
might have been a great man in Madagasky; it's too darned bad! Blast
Ameriky, I say." And in bitter grief at the social blight upon his whole
past, present, and future, Larry turned away, pulling his hat still
lower down over the bridge of his nose.

In strong contrast to Larry, was a young man-of-war's man we had, who
went by the name of "Gun-Deck," from his always talking of sailor life
in the navy. He was a little fellow with a small face and a prodigious
mop of brown hair; who always dressed in man-of-war style, with a wide,
braided collar to his frock, and Turkish trowsers. But he particularly
prided himself upon his feet, which were quite small; and when we washed
down decks of a morning, never mind how chilly it might be, he always
took off his boots, and went paddling about like a duck, turning out his
pretty toes to show his charming feet.

He had served in the armed steamers during the Seminole War in Florida,
and had a good deal to say about sailing up the rivers there, through
the everglades, and popping off Indians on the banks. I remember his
telling a story about a party being discovered at quite a distance from
them; but one of the savages was made very conspicuous by a pewter