well have attempted to clothe himself with cobweb
continuations; they came to pieces almost with a shake. The waistcoat
and coat were in the same predicament; they had not the principle of
continuity in them. Everybody was lost in amazement, except Mr Pigtop,
whose amazement, quite as great as ours, was lost in his still greater
rage. It was extremely unfortunate for Joshua Daunton that he had cut
the lip that day. The kind doctor was still by during the apparelling,
or the attempt at it. He examined the rotten clothes, and he soon
discovered that they had been saturated in different parts by some
corrosive liquid, that, instead of impairing, really improved the
brilliancy of the cloth.

During these proceedings, Captain Reud and his guests had eaten up the
dinner; but the captain, not being pleased to be pleasantly humoured
that day, sent word to Mr Pigtop to go to the mast-head till midnight
for disrespect in not attending to the invitation that he had accepted.
There was no appeal, and aloft went the wounded, ragged, famished hoper
of devouring turtle-soup. Joshua looked very demure and very unhappy;
but Dr Thompson set on foot an inquiry, and the truth of the
destruction of the clothes was soon ascertained. The loblolly-boy, that
is, the young man who had charge of the laboratory where all the
medicines were kept, confessed, after a little hesitation, that for
certain glasses of grog he had given this pernicious liquid to Daunton.
So, while one of his masters was contemplating the stars from the
mast-head, the destroyer of reefers' kits had nothing else to do but to
contemplate the beauty of his own feet, placed, with a judicious
exactitude, in a very handsome pair of bilboes under the half deck.

CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN.

THE CAT-OF-NINE-TAILS BEGETS A TALE THE MOST ANNOYING TO RALPH--THE
STORY OF THE THREE CROWS BEATEN HOLLOW--SEVEN'S THE MAIN AND A LOSING
CAST--A PROMISED TREATISE ON ORNITHOLOGY PUT AN END TO RATHER ABRUPTLY
BY THE BIPLUMAL RESOLVING THEMSELVES INTO THE MERE BIPEDAL.

When fully secured, the poor wretch sent for me. He was in a paroxysm
of fear: he protested his innocence over and over again: he declared
that he should die under the first lash; that it was for love of me only
that he had come on board of a man-of-war; he conjured me by the
fellowship of our boyish days, by all that I loved and that was sacred
to us, to save him from the gangway. The easiness of my nature was
worked