before him three or four of his subordinates, carrying several clothes'
bags, which were deposited at the base of the mast.

Our Purser's steward was a rather gentlemanly man in his way.
Like many young Americans of his class, he had at various times
assumed the most opposite functions for a livelihood, turning
from one to the other with all the facility of a light-hearted,
clever adventurer. He had been a clerk in a steamer on the
Mississippi River; an auctioneer in Ohio; a stock actor at the
Olympic Theatre in New York; and now he was Purser's steward in
the Navy. In the course of this deversified career his natural
wit and waggery had been highly spiced, and every way improved;
and he had acquired the last and most difficult art of the joker,
the art of lengthening his own face while widening those of his
hearers, preserving the utmost solemnity while setting them all
in a roar. He was quite a favourite with the sailors, which, in a
good degree, was owing to his humour; but likewise to his off-
hand, irresistible, romantic, theatrical manner of addressing them.

With a dignified air, he now mounted the pedestal of the main-
top-sail sheet-bitts, imposing silence by a theatrical wave of
his hand; meantime, his subordinates were rummaging the bags,
and assorting their contents before him.

"Now, my noble hearties," he began, "we will open this auction by
offering to your impartial competition a very superior pair of
old boots;" and so saying, he dangled aloft one clumsy cowhide
cylinder, almost as large as a fire bucket, as a specimen of the
complete pair.