said Jack Chase to him, as he slowly
returned up the rigging, "did you get it? You need not answer; I see
you were too late. But never mind, my boy: no printer could do the
business for you better. That's the way to publish, White-Jacket,"
turning to me--"fire it right into 'em; every canto a twenty-four-pound
shot; _hull_ the blockheads, whether they will or no. And mind you,
Lemsford, when your shot does the most execution, your hear the least
from the foe. A killed man cannot even lisp."

"Glorious Jack!" cried Lemsford, running up and snatching him by the
hand, "say that again, Jack! look me in the eyes. By all the Homers,
Jack, you have made my soul mount like a balloon! Jack, I'm a poor
devil of a poet. Not two months before I shipped aboard here, I
published a volume of poems, very aggressive on the world, Jack. Heaven
knows what it cost me. I published it, Jack, and the cursed publisher
sued me for damages; my friends looked sheepish; one or two who liked
it were non-committal; and as for the addle-pated mob and rabble, they
thought they had found out a fool. Blast them, Jack, what they call the
public is a monster, like the idol we saw in Owhyhee, with the head of
a jackass, the body of a baboon, and the tail of a scorpion!"

"I don't like that," said Jack; "when I'm ashore, I myself am part of
the public."

"Your pardon, Jack; you are not, you are then a part of the people,
just as you are aboard the frigate here. The public is one thing, Jack,
and the people another."

"You are right," said Jack; "right as this leg. Virgil, you are a
trump; you are a jewel, my boy. The public and the people! Ay, ay, my
lads, let us hate the one and cleave to the other."

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE COMMODORE ON THE POOP, AND ONE OF "THE PEOPLE" UNDER THE HANDS OF
THE SURGEON.

A day or two after the publication of Lemsford's "Songs of the Sirens,"
a sad accident befell a mess-mate of mine, one of the captains of the
mizzen-top. He was a fine little Scot, who, from the premature loss of
the hair on the top of his head, always went by the name of _Baldy_.
This baldness was no doubt, in great part, attributable to the same
cause that early thins the locks of most man-of-war's-men--namely, the
hard, unyielding, and ponderous man-of-war and navy-regulation
tarpaulin hat, which, when new, is stiff enough to sit upon, and
indeed, in lieu of his thumb, sometimes serves the common sailor for a
bench.

Now, there is nothing u