White Jacket; Or, The World on a Man-of-War Part 24

"So I am, so I am," said the auctioneer, without moving a muscle. "And look!" he exclaimed, suddenly seizing the boot, and exhibiting it on high, "look, my n.o.ble tars, if you have tears, prepare to shed them now. You all do know this boot. I remember the first time ever old Bob put it on. 'Twas on a winter evening, off Cape Horn, between the starboard carronades--that day his precious grog was stopped. Look! in this place a mouse has nibbled through; see what a rent some envious rat has made, through this another filed, and, as he plucked his cursed rasp away, mark how the bootleg gaped. This was the unkindest cut of all. But whose are the boots?" suddenly a.s.suming a business-like air; "yours? yours? yours?"

But not a friend of the lamented Bob stood by.

"Tars of Columbia," said the auctioneer, imperatively, "these boots must be sold; and if I can't sell them one way, I must sell them another. How much _a pound_, now, for this superior pair of old boots?

going by _the pound_ now, remember, my gallant sailors! what shall I have? one cent, do I hear? going now at one cent a pound--going--going--going--_gone!_"

"Whose are they? Yours, Captain of the Waist? Well, my sweet and pleasant friend, I will have them weighed out to you when the auction is over."

In like manner all the contents of the bags were disposed of, embracing old frocks, trowsers, and jackets, the various sums for which they went being charged to the bidders on the books of the Purser.

Having been present at this auction, though not a purchaser, and seeing with what facility the most dismantled old garments went off, through the magical cleverness of the accomplished auctioneer, the thought occurred to me, that if ever I calmly and positively decided to dispose of my famous white jacket, this would be the very way to do it. I turned the matter over in my mind a long time.

The weather in Rio was genial and warm, and that I would ever again need such a thing as a heavy quilted jacket--and such a jacket as the white one, too--seemed almost impossible. Yet I remembered the American coast, and that it would probably be Autumn when we should arrive there. Yes, I thought of all that, to be sure; nevertheless, the ungovernable whim seized me to sacrifice my jacket and recklessly abide the consequences. Besides, was it not a horrible jacket? To how many annoyances had it subjected me? How many sc.r.a.pes had it dragged me into? Nay, had it not once jeopardised my very existence? And I had a dreadful presentiment that, if I persisted in retaining it, it would do so again. Enough! I will sell it, I muttered; and so muttering, I thrust my hands further down in my waistband, and walked the main-top in the stern concentration of an inflexible purpose. Next day, hearing that another auction was shortly to take place, I repaired to the office of the Purser's steward, with whom I was upon rather friendly terms. After vaguely and delicately hinting at the object of my visit, I came roundly to the point, and asked him whether he could slip my jacket into one of the bags of clothes next to be sold, and so dispose of it by public auction. He kindly acquiesced and the thing was done.

In due time all hands were again summoned round the main-mast; the Purser's steward mounted his post, and the ceremony began. Meantime, I lingered out of sight, but still within hearing, on the gun-deck below, gazing up, un-perceived, at the scene.

As it is now so long ago, I will here frankly make confession that I had privately retained the services of a friend--Williams, the Yankee pedagogue and peddler--whose business it would be to linger near the scene of the auction, and, if the bids on the jacket loitered, to start it roundly himself; and if the bidding then became brisk, he was continually to strike in with the most pertinacious and infatuated bids, and so exasperate compet.i.tion into the maddest and most extravagant overtures.

A variety of other articles having been put up, the white jacket was slowly produced, and, held high aloft between the auctioneer's thumb and fore-finger, was submitted to the inspection of the discriminating public.

Here it behooves me once again to describe my jacket; for, as a portrait taken at one period of life will not answer for a later stage; much more this jacket of mine, undergoing so many changes, needs to be painted again and again, in order truly to present its actual appearance at any given period.

A premature old age had now settled upon it; all over it bore melancholy sears of the masoned-up pockets that had once trenched it in various directions. Some parts of it were slightly mildewed from dampness; on one side several of the b.u.t.tons were gone, and others were broken or cracked; while, alas! my many mad endeavours to rub it black on the decks had now imparted to the whole garment an exceedingly untidy appearance. Such as it was, with all its faults, the auctioneer displayed it.

"You, venerable sheet-anchor-men! and you, gallant fore-top-men! and you, my fine waisters! what do you say now for this superior old jacket? b.u.t.tons and sleeves, lining and skirts, it must this day be sold without reservation. How much for it, my gallant tars of Columbia?

say the word, and how much?"

"My eyes!" exclaimed a fore-top-man, "don't that 'ere bunch of old swabs belong to Jack Chase's pet? Aren't that _the white jacket?_"

"_The white jacket!_" cried fifty voices in response; "_the white jacket!_" The cry ran fore and aft the s.h.i.+p like a slogan, completely overwhelming the solitary voice of my private friend Williams, while all hands gazed at it with straining eyes, wondering how it came among the bags of deceased mariners.

"Ay, n.o.ble tars," said the auctioneer, "you may well stare at it; you will not find another jacket like this on either side of Cape Horn, I a.s.sure you. Why, just look at it! How much, now? _Give_ me a bid--but don't be rash; be prudent, be prudent, men; remember your Purser's accounts, and don't be betrayed into extravagant bids."

"Purser's Steward!" cried Grummet, one of the quarter-gunners, slowly s.h.i.+fting his quid from one cheek to the other, like a ballast-stone, "I won't bid on that 'ere bunch of old swabs, unless you put up ten pounds of soap with it."

"Don't mind that old fellow," said the auctioneer. "How much for the jacket, my n.o.ble tars?"

"Jacket;" cried a dandy _bone polisher_ of the gun-room. "The sail-maker was the tailor, then. How many fathoms of canvas in it, Purser's Steward?"

"How much for this _jacket_?" reiterated the auctioneer, emphatically.

"_Jacket_, do you call it!" cried a captain of the hold.

"Why not call it a white-washed man-of-war schooner? Look at the port-holes, to let in the air of cold nights."

"A reg'lar herring-net," chimed in Grummet.

"Gives me the _fever nagur_ to look at it," echoed a mizzen-top-man.

"Silence!" cried the auctioneer. "Start it now--start it, boys; anything you please, my fine fellows! it _must_ be sold. Come, what ought I to have on it, now?"

"Why, Purser's Steward," cried a waister, "you ought to have new sleeves, a new lining, and a new body on it, afore you try to shove it off on a greenhorn."

"What are you, 'busin' that 'ere garment for?" cried an old sheet-anchor-man. "Don't you see it's a 'uniform mustering jacket'--three b.u.t.tons on one side, and none on t'other?"

"Silence!" again cried the auctioneer. "How much, my sea-fencibles, for this superior old jacket?"

"Well," said Grummet, "I'll take it for cleaning-rags at one cent."

"Oh, come, give us a bid! say something, Colombians."

"Well, then," said Grummet, all at once bursting into genuine indignation, "if you want us to say something, then heave that bunch of old swabs overboard, _say I_, and show us something worth looking at."

"No one will give me a bid, then? Very good; here, shove it aside.

Let's have something else there."

While this scene was going forward, and my white jacket was thus being abused, how my heart swelled within me! Thrice was I on the point of rus.h.i.+ng out of my hiding-place, and bearing it off from derision; but I lingered, still flattering myself that all would be well, and the jacket find a purchaser at last. But no, alas! there was no getting rid of it, except by rolling a forty-two-pound shot in it, and committing it to the deep. But though, in my desperation, I had once contemplated something of that sort, yet I had now become unaccountably averse to it, from certain involuntary superst.i.tious considerations. If I sink my jacket, thought I, it will be sure to spread itself into a bed at the bottom of the sea, upon which I shall sooner or later recline, a dead man. So, unable to conjure it into the possession of another, and withheld from burying it out of sight for ever, my jacket stuck to me like the fatal s.h.i.+rt on Nessus.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

PURSER, PURSER'S STEWARD, AND POSTMASTER IN A MAN-OF-WAR.

As the Purser's steward so conspicuously figured at the unsuccessful auction of my jacket, it reminds me of how important a personage that official is on board of all men-of-war. He is the right-hand man and confidential deputy and clerk of the Purser, who intrusts to him all his accounts with the crew, while, in most cases, he himself, snug and comfortable in his state-room, glances over a file of newspapers instead of overhauling his ledgers.

Of all the non-combatants of a man-of-war, the Purser, perhaps, stands foremost in importance. Though he is but a member of the gun-room mess, yet usage seems to a.s.sign him a conventional station somewhat above that of his equals in navy rank--the Chaplain, Surgeon, and Professor.

Moreover, he is frequently to be seen in close conversation with the Commodore, who, in the Neversink, was more than once known to be slightly jocular with our Purser. Upon several occasions, also, he was called into the Commodore's cabin, and remained closeted there for several minutes together. Nor do I remember that there ever happened a cabinet meeting of the ward-room barons, the Lieutenants, in the Commodore's cabin, but the Purser made one of the party. Doubtless the important fact of the Purser having under his charge all the financial affairs of a man-of-war, imparts to him the great importance he enjoys.

Indeed, we find in every government--monarchies and republics alike--that the personage at the head of the finances invariably occupies a commanding position. Thus, in point of station, the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States is deemed superior to the other heads of departments. Also, in England, the real office held by the great Premier himself is--as every one knows--that of First Lord of the Treasury.

Now, under this high functionary of state, the official known as the Purser's Steward was head clerk of the frigate's fiscal affairs. Upon the berth-deck he had a regular counting-room, full of ledgers, journals, and day-books. His desk was as much littered with papers as any Pearl Street merchant's, and much time was devoted to his accounts.

For hours together you would see him, through the window of his subterranean office, writing by the light of his perpetual lamp.

_Ex-officio_, the Purser's Steward of most s.h.i.+ps is a sort of postmaster, and his office the post-office. When the letter-bags for the squadron--almost as large as those of the United States mail--arrived on board the Neversink, it was the Purser's Steward that sat at his little window on the berth-deck and handed you your letter or paper--if any there were to your address. Some disappointed applicants among the sailors would offer to buy the epistles of their more fortunate s.h.i.+pmates, while yet the seal was unbroken--maintaining that the sole and confidential reading of a fond, long, domestic letter from any man's home, was far better than no letter at all.

In the vicinity of the office of the Purser's Steward are the princ.i.p.al store-rooms of the Purser, where large quant.i.ties of goods of every description are to be found. On board of those s.h.i.+ps where goods are permitted to be served out to the crew for the purpose of selling them ash.o.r.e, to raise money, more business is transacted at the office of a Purser's Steward in one _Liberty-day_ morning than all the dry goods shops in a considerable village would transact in a week.

Once a month, with undeviating regularity, this official has his hands more than usually full. For, once a month, certain printed bills, called Mess-bills, are circulated among the crew, and whatever you may want from the Purser--be it tobacco, soap, duck, dungaree, needles, thread, knives, belts, calico, ribbon, pipes, paper, pens, hats, ink, shoes, socks, or whatever it may be--down it goes on the mess-bill, which, being the next day returned to the office of the Steward, the "slops," as they are called, are served out to the men and charged to their accounts.

Lucky is it for man-of-war's-men that the outrageous impositions to which, but a very few years ago, they were subjected from the abuses in this department of the service, and the unscrupulous cupidity of many of the pursers--lucky is it for them that _now_ these things are in a great degree done away. The Pursers, instead of being at liberty to make almost what they pleased from the sale of their wares, are now paid by regular stipends laid down by law.

Under the exploded system, the profits of some of these officers were almost incredible. In one cruise up the Mediterranean, the Purser of an American line-of-battle s.h.i.+p was, on good authority, said to have cleared the sum of $50,000. Upon that he quitted the service, and retired into the country. Shortly after, his three daughters--not very lovely--married extremely well.

The ideas that sailors entertain of Pursers is expressed in a rather inelegant but expressive saying of theirs: "The Purser is a conjurer; he can make a dead man chew tobacco"--insinuating that the accounts of a dead man are sometimes subjected to post-mortem charges. Among sailors, also, Pursers commonly go by the name of _nip-cheeses_.

No wonder that on board of the old frigate Java, upon her return from a cruise extending over a period of more than four years, one thousand dollars paid off eighty of her crew, though the aggregate wages of the eighty for the voyage must have amounted to about sixty thousand dollars. Even under the present system, the Purser of a line-of-battle s.h.i.+p, for instance, is far better paid than any other officer, short of Captain or Commodore. While the Lieutenant commonly receives but eighteen hundred dollars, the Surgeon of the fleet but fifteen hundred, the Chaplain twelve hundred, the Purser of a line-of-battle s.h.i.+p receives thirty-five hundred dollars. In considering his salary, however, his responsibilities are not to be over-looked; they are by no means insignificant.