"'Don't ask me,' 'e says, sneerin' be'ind his silver spectacles. ''E's
promoted to be captain's second supernumerary servant, to be dressed and
addressed as such. If 'e does 'is dooties same as he skinned the spuds,
_I_ ain't for changin' with the old man.'
"In the balmy dawnin' it was given out, all among the 'olystones, by our
sub-lootenant, who was a three-way-discharge devil, that all orders after
eight bells was to be executed in inverse ration to the cube o' the
velocity. 'The reg'lar routine,' he says, 'was arrogated for reasons o'
state an' policy, an' any flat-foot who presumed to exhibit surprise,
annoyance, or amusement, would be slightly but firmly reproached.' Then
the Gunner mops up a heathenish large detail for some hanky-panky in the
magazines, an' led 'em off along with our Gunnery Jack, which is to say,
our Gunnery Lootenant.
"That put us on the _viva voce_--particularly when we understood how the
owner was navigatin' abroad in his sword-belt trustin' us like brothers.
We shifts into the dress o' the day, an' we musters _an'_ we prays _ong
reggle_, an' we carries on anticipatory to bafflin' Antonio.
"Then our Sergeant of Marines come to me wringin' his 'ands an' weepin'.
'E'd been talkin' to the sub-lootenant, an' it looked like as if his
upper-works were collapsin'.
"'I want a guarantee,' 'e says, wringin' 'is 'ands like this. '_I_ 'aven't
'ad sunstroke slave-dhowin' in Tajurrah Bay, an' been compelled to live on
quinine an' chlorodyne ever since.
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