Chapter 4 - Page 2

hundred common
mortals; Jack was a whole phalanx, an entire army; Jack was a
thousand strong; Jack would have done honour to the Queen of
England's drawing-room; Jack must have been a by-blow of some
British Admiral of the Blue. A finer specimen of the island race
of Englishmen could not have been picked out of Westminster Abbey
of a coronation day.

His whole demeanor was in strong contrast to that of one of the
Captains of the fore-top. This man, though a good seaman,
furnished an example of those insufferable Britons, who, while
preferring other countries to their own as places of residence;
still, overflow with all the pompousness of national and
individual vanity combined. "When I was on board the Audacious"--
for a long time, was almost the invariable exordium to the fore-
top Captain's most cursory remarks. It is often the custom of
men-of-war's-men, when they deem anything to be going on wrong
aboard ship to refer to _last cruise_ when of course everything
was done _ship-shape and Bristol fashion_. And by referring to
the _Audacious_--an expressive name by the way--the fore-top
Captain meant a ship in the English navy, in which he had had the
honour of serving. So continual were his allusions to this craft
with the amiable name, that at last, the _Audacious_ was voted a
bore by his shipmates. And one hot afternoon, during a calm, when
the fore-top Captain like many others, was standing still and
yawning on the spar-deck; Jack Chase, his own countryman, came up
to him, and pointing at his open mouth, politely inquired, whether
that was the way they caught _flies_ in Her Britannic Majesty's ship,
the _Audacious?_ After that, we heard no more of the craft.

Now, the tops of a frigate are quite spacious and cosy. They are
railed in behind so as to form a kind of balcony, very pleasant
of a tropical night. From twenty to thirty loungers may agreeably
recline there, cushioning themselves on old sails and jackets. We
had rare times in that top. We accounted ourselves the best
seamen in the ship; and from our airy perch, literally looked
down upon the landlopers below, sneaking about the deck, among
the guns. In a large degree, we nourished that feeling of
"_esprit de corps_," always pervading, more or less, the various
sections of a man-of-war's crew. We main-top-men were brothers,
one and all, and we loaned ourselves to each other with all the
freedom in the world.

Nevertheless, I had not long been a member of this fraternity of
fine fellows, ere I discovered that Jack Chase, our captain was--
like all prime favorites and oracles among men--a little bit of a
dictator; not peremptorily, or annoyingly so, but amusingly
intent on egotistically mending