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- 630
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- round to look out at the mast-head, or stand at the wheel, he catered
for me among the “kids” in the forecastle with unwearied assiduity.
Many’s the good lump of “duff” for which I was indebted to my good
Viking’s good care of me. And like Sesostris I was served by a monarch.
Yet in some degree the obligation was mutual. For be it known that, in
sea-parlance, we were _chummies._
Now this _chummying_ among sailors is like the brotherhood subsisting
between a brace of collegians (chums) rooming together. It is a
Fidus-Achates-ship, a league of offense and defense, a copartnership of
chests and toilets, a bond of love and good feeling, and a mutual
championship of the absent one. True, my nautical reminiscenses remind
me of sundry lazy, ne’er-do-well, unprofitable, and abominable
chummies; chummies, who at meal times were last at the “kids,” when
their unfortunate partners were high upon the spars; chummies, who
affected awkwardness at the needle, and conscientious scruples about
dabbling in the suds; so that chummy the simple was made to do all the
work of the firm, while chummy the cunning played the sleeping partner
in his hammock. Out upon such chummies!
But I appeal to thee, honest Jarl, if I was ever chummy the cunning.
Never mind if thou didst fabricate my tarpaulins; and with Samaritan
charity bind up the rents, and pour needle and thread into the
frightful gashes that agonized my hapless nether integuments, which
thou calledst “ducks;”—Didst thou not expressly declare, that all these
things, and more, thou wouldst do for me, despite my own quaint
thimble, fashioned from the ivory tusk of a whale? Nay; could I even
wrest from thy willful hands my very shirt, when once thou hadst it
steaming in an unsavory pickle in thy capacious vat, a decapitated
cask? Full well thou knowest, Jarl, that these things are true; and I
am bound to say it, to disclaim any lurking desire to reap advantage
from thy great good nature.
Now my Viking for me, thought I, when I cast about for a comrade; and
my Viking alone.
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