“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.