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Untitled Article
conditional , a comparative and exceptive admiration , and mingled in it something which was like intended information to us , thdugh not immediately addressed to us , it was talking at us , with some allusions to ships much larger , finer , and more beautiful than any there . Really I thought them very obliging . Go where we would the pigtails swung in attendance on us . At length one said , ' Are
you looking for a ship , boys ? * Well , ' thought I , ' this is a very civil , kind-hearted fellow , spite of his mahogany face . * This put an end to all our trouble . 4 1 thank you , yes ; 1 should like to go on board of a ship . ' ' Well come along with us / said first pigtail ' s duplicate , ' our ship is a gallows deal finer than any you ' ve seen yet , with a jolly good Captain too ; he splices the main brace every week , and every time of close-reef topsails . ' * Ay , ' said pigtail the first , and he'll order the pusser * s steward to blow your kite out with lobscous and choke your luff with figgy-dowdy . * — What splicing the main brace , and choking my luff , and lobscous , and figgy-dowdy meant ,. I could not guess for the life of me ; but as they were illustrations of the 4 jolly captain ' s' good qualities , there was a spell in the unintelligible jargon ; ( many with wiser
heads than mine have been humbugged by such process ;) and with our guides , who , seeing we were strangers , kindly kept close to our elbows , we stepped lightly along , and entered a narrow street parallel with St . George ^ s dock ; several persons , as we passed , stood to look at us ; and I noticed a shaking of heads , (as if they meant 4 Ah ! something is wrong ; ' there seemed to be a compassion in it . Look there , ' said one of the sailors . 1 did look there , ' as he pointed , and saw an immense white flag , with a large red cross on the field , and a jumble of smaller crosses in
its corner , sweeping and swinging magnificently from a secondfloor window , down almost to the pavement . Into the door of the house we passed ; ascended a flight of stairs , —our body guard regularly placed , one leading , the other bringing up the rear . We paused at the end of the first flight , and the leader tapped with his knuckles twice , on what sounded door-like , and without waiting for an answer , opened the door just sufficiently wide to admit him slippingly , and it was instantly closed again . There was something in this which struck rather chillingly on my spirits , as we stood there in the dark passage . My friend George could not suppress his alarm , and he grasped my wrist hard , with a groan ,
' ( Jh , trying to draw me back , but 1 was afraid of being frightened : —J ^ elt an instinctive certainty that we could not escape that wa ^ W ^ ve endeavoured to do so , and I was right , for at that moment I heard the stepping and scraping of feet on the stairsthere was nothing for us but to go on . The door was now drawn open , and our pig-tailed leader looked over our heads to his comrade , then beckoned to us to ' heave a-head ; ' we did so ; there were three other of the same breed of animals as our guides , standing in the room , near a door which opened as 1 supposed ,
Untitled Article
540 Autobiography of Pel . Verjuice .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1833, page 540, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2620/page/28/
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