Chapter 47

AN AUCTION IN A MAN-OF-WAR.

Some allusion has been made to the weariness experienced by the
man-of-war's-men while lying at anchor; but there are scenes now
and then that serve to relieve it. Chief among these are the
Purser's auctions, taking place while in harbour. Some weeks, or
perhaps months, after a sailor dies in an armed vessel, his bag
of clothes is in this manner sold, and the proceeds transferred
to the account of his heirs or executors.

One of these auctions came off in Rio, shortly after the sad
accident of Baldy.

It was a dreamy, quiet afternoon, and the crew were listlessly
lying 'around, when suddenly the Boatswain's whistle was heard,
followed by the announcement, "D'ye hear there, fore and aft?
Purser's auction on the spar-deck!"

At the sound, the sailors sprang to their feet and mustered round
the main-mast. Presently up came the Purser's steward, marshalling
before him three or four of his subordinates, carrying several clothes'
bags, which were deposited at the base of the mast.

Our Purser's steward was a rather gentlemanly man in his way.
Like many young Americans of his class, he had at various times
assumed the most opposite functions for a livelihood, turning
from one to the other with all the facility of a light-hearted,
clever adventurer. He had been a clerk in a steamer on the
Mississippi River; an auctioneer in Ohio; a stock actor at the
Olympic Theatre in New York; and now he was Purser's steward in
the Navy. In the course of this deversified career his natural
wit and waggery had been highly spiced, and every way improved;
and he had acquired the last and most difficult art of the joker,
the art of lengthening his own face while widening those of his
hearers, preserving the utmost solemnity while setting them all
in a roar. He was quite a favourite with the sailors, which, in a
good degree, was owing to his humour; but likewise to his off-
hand, irresistible, romantic, theatrical manner of addressing them.

With a dignified air, he now mounted the pedestal of the main-
top-sail sheet-bitts, imposing silence by a theatrical wave of
his hand; meantime, his subordinates were rummaging the bags,
and assorting their contents before him.

"Now, my noble hearties," he began, "we will open this auction by
offering to your impartial competition a very superior pair of
old boots;" and so saying, he dangled aloft one clumsy cowhide
cylinder, almost as large as a fire bucket, as a specimen of the
complete pair.

"What shall I have now, my noble tars, for this superior pair of
sea-boots?"

"Where's t'other boot?" cried a suspicious-eyed waister. "I remember
them 'ere