elf honoured with the least glance from the acutest angle of his
eye.

Yes: this young Emperor will have a fine time of this life, even so
long as he condescends to exist. Every one jumps to obey him; and see,
as I live, there is an old nobleman in his suit--the Marquis d'Acarty
they call him, old enough to be his grandfather--who, in the hot sun,
is standing bareheaded before him, while the Emperor carries his hat on
his head.

"I suppose that old gentleman, now," said a young New England tar
beside me, "would consider it a great honour to put on his Royal
Majesty's boots; and yet, White-Jacket, if yonder Emperor and I were to
strip and jump overboard for a bath, it would be hard telling which was
of the blood royal when we should once be in the water. Look you, Don
Pedro II.," he added, "how do you come to be Emperor? Tell me that. You
cannot pull as many pounds as I on the main-topsail-halyards; you are
not as tall as I: your nose is a pug, and mine is a cut-water; and how
do you come to be a '_brigand_,' with that thin pair of spars? A
_brigand_, indeed!"

"_Braganza_, you mean," said I, willing to correct the rhetoric of so
fierce a republican, and, by so doing, chastise his censoriousness.

"Braganza! _bragger_ it is," he replied; "and a bragger, indeed. See
that feather in his cap! See how he struts in that coat! He may well
wear a green one, top-mates--he's a green-looking swab at the best."

"Hush, Jonathan," said I; "there's the _First Duff_ looking up. Be
still! the Emperor will hear you;" and I put my hand on his mouth.

"Take your hand away, White-Jacket," he cried; "there's no law up aloft
here. I say, you Emperor--you greenhorn in the green coat, there--look
you, you can't raise a pair of whiskers yet; and see what a pair of
homeward-bounders I have on my jowls! _Don Pedro_, eh? What's that,
after all, but plain Peter--reckoned a shabby name in my country. Damn
me, White-Jacket, I wouldn't call my dog Peter!"

"Clap a stopper on your jaw-tackle, will you?" cried Ringbolt, the
sailor on the other side of him. "You'll be getting us all into darbies
for this."

"I won't trice up my red rag for nobody," retorted Jonathan. "So you
had better take a round turn with yours, Ringbolt, and let me alone, or
I'll fetch you such a swat over your figure-head, you'll think a Long
Wharf truck-horse kicked you with all four shoes on one hoof! You
Emperor--you counter-jumping son of a gun--cock your weather eye up