of the
prisoner, that made _me_ start.

"One," said the master-at-arms, beginning to count.

"One!" roared the captain, "do you call that one? not a quarter of a
one. That fellow is only fit for fly-flapper at a pork shop! I'll
disrate you, by God, you damned molly mop; is that the way you handle a
cat? that's only wiping the dirt off his back. Where's the boatswain?"

"Here," said a stout, gigantic, left-handed fellow, stepping forward,
with a huge blue uniform coat and a plain anchor button, holding his hat
in his left hand, and stroking his hair down his forehead with his
right. I surveyed this man, as he turned himself about, and concluded
that the tailor who worked for him had been threatened with a specimen
of his art, if he stinted him in cloth; for the skirts of his coat were
ample, terminating in an inclined plane, the corners in front being much
lower than the middle of the robe behind; the buttons on the hips were
nearly pistol-shot asunder.

"Give this man a dozen, sir," said Captain G---; "and if you favour him,
I'll put you under arrest, and stop your liquor."

This last part of the threat had more effect with Mr Pipes than the
first. He began to peel, as the boxers call it; off came his capacious
coat; a red waistcoat--full-sized for a Smithfield ox--was next
deposited; then he untied a black silk handkerchief, and showed a
throat, covered like that of a goat with long brown hairs, thick as
packthread. He next rolled up his shirt-sleeves above his elbow, and
showed an arm and a back very like the Farnese Hercules, which no doubt
all my readers have seen at the foot of the staircase at Somerset House,
when they had been to the exhibition.

This hopeful commentator on articles of war seized his cat: the handle
was two feet long, one inch and three quarters thick; and covered with
red baize. The tails of this terrific weapon were three feet long, nine
in number, and each of them about the size of that line which covers the
springs of a travelling carriage. Mr Pipes, whose scientific display
in this part of art had no doubt procured for him the warrant of a
boatswain, in virtue of which he now stood as the vindicator of the laws
of his country, handled his cat like an adept, looked at it from top to
bottom, cleared all the tails by the insertion of his delicate fingers,
and combing them out, stretched out his left leg--for he was left-legged
as well as left-handed--and measuring his distance wi