- end_line
- 8629
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:36.274Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 8572
- text
- I make believe coil this here rope; if there arn’t a dozen in that ’ere
Captain’s top-lights, my name is _horse-marine_. If I could only touch
my tile to him now, and take my Bible oath on it, that I was only
taking off Priming, and not _him_, he wouldn’t have such hard thoughts
of me. But that can’t be done; he’d think I meant to insult him. Well,
it can’t be helped; I suppose I must look out for a baker’s dozen afore
long.”
I had an incredulous laugh at this. But two days afterward, when we
were hoisting the main-top-mast stun’-sail, and the Lieutenant of the
Watch was reprimanding the crowd of seamen at the halyards for their
laziness—for the sail was but just crawling up to its place, owing to
the languor of the men, induced by the heat—the Captain, who had been
impatiently walking the deck, suddenly stopped short, and darting his
eyes among the seamen, suddenly fixed them, crying out, “You, Candy,
and be damned to you, you don’t pull an ounce, you blackguard! Stand up
to that gun, sir; I’ll teach you to be grinning over a rope that way,
without lending your pound of beef to it. Boatswain’s mate, where’s
your _colt?_ Give that man a dozen.”
Removing his hat, the boatswain’s mate looked into the crown aghast;
the coiled rope, usually worn there, was not to be found; but the next
instant it slid from the top of his head to the deck. Picking it up,
and straightening it out, he advanced toward the sailor.
“Sir,” said Candy, touching and retouching his cap to the Captain, “I
was pulling, sir, as much as the rest, sir; I was, indeed, sir.”
“Stand up to that gun,” cried the Captain. “Boatswain’s mate, do your
duty.”
Three stripes were given, when the Captain raised his finger.
“You——,[3] do you dare stand up to be flogged with your hat on! Take it
off, sir, instantly.”
[3] The phrase here used I have never seen either written or printed,
and should not like to be the first person to introduce it to the
public.
Candy dropped it on deck.
“Now go on, boatswain’s mate.” And the sailor received his dozen.
With his hand to his back he came up to me, where I stood among the
by-standers, saying, “O Lord, O Lord! that boatswain’s mate, too, had a
spite agin me; he always thought it was _me_ that set afloat that yarn
about his wife in Norfolk. O Lord! just run your hand under my shirt
will you, White-Jacket? There!! didn’t he have a spite agin me, to
raise such bars as them? And my shirt all cut to pieces, too—arn’t it,
White-Jacket? Damn me, but these coltings puts the tin in the Purser’s
pocket. O Lord! my back feels as if there was a red-hot gridiron lashed
to it. But I told you so—a widow’s curse on him, say I—he thought I
meant _him_, and not Priming.”
- title
- Chunk 2