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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
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