crack ship, and flew the blue
ensign, even on week-days; her captain was an F.R.A.S., and her boys
(whose parents paid heavy premiums for the glitter) wore brass buttons
to everyday work, and were rated as midshipmen, no less! The day after
her arrival some of them were leaning over the rail looking at our
barque, and acquaintance might have been made then and there, but Jones
(who fancied himself a wit) spoiled the chances of an understanding by
asking them if the stewardess had aired their socks properly that
morning. Such a question aroused great indignation, and for over a
fortnight we were 'low bounders,' and they 'kid-glove sailors.'

Matters went ill between us, and our ships were too close together to
ignore one another altogether. The 'Torreador's' contented themselves
with looking smarter and more aggressively clean than ever, and with
casting supercilious glances all over us when they saw us chipping and
scraping the rust off our vessel's topside--(they never got such jobs
to do, as their Old Man was too busy cramming them up with "Sumners"
and "Deviation Curves"). We replied by making stage asides to one
another on the methods of 'coddling sickly sailors,' and Jones even
went the length of arraying himself in a huge paper collar when he was
put over-side to paint ship. A brilliant idea, he thought it, until
the Mate noticed him, and made his ears tingle till sundown.

The 'Torreador's' kept a gangway watch, and one of his duties seemed to
be to cross the deck at intervals and inspect our barque, crew, and
equipment in a lofty manner. He would even (if his Mate--the Chief
Officer, they called him--wasn't looking) put his hands in his beckets
and his tongue in his cheek. At first we greeted his appearance with
exaggerated respect; we would stand to attention and salute him in
style; but latterly, his frequent appearances (particularly as he
always seemed to be there when our Mate was recounting our misdeeds,
and explaining what lazy, loafing, ignorant, and 'sodgering' creatures
he had to handle) got on our nerves.

Matters went on in this way for over a week, and everybody was getting
tired of it; not only on our ship, for one day we caught a 'Torreador'
openly admiring our collection of sharks' tails which we had nailed to
the jib-boom. When he found himself observed he blushed and went about
some business, before we had a chance to ask him aboard to see the
sharks' backbones--fashioned into fearso