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- 11111
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:36.274Z
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- 11048
- text
- accordingly tucks, point backward, under his arm, like an umbrella on a
sun-shiny day. The other hand is continually bobbing up and down to the
leather front of his cap, in response to the reports and salute of his
subordinates, to whom he never deigns to vouchsafe a syllable, merely
going through the motions of accepting their news, without bestowing
thanks for their pains.
This continual touching of caps between officers on board a man-of-war
is the reason why you invariably notice that the glazed fronts of their
caps look jaded, lack-lustre, and worn; sometimes slightly
oleaginous—though, in other respects, the cap may appear glossy and
fresh. But as for the First Lieutenant, he ought to have extra pay
allowed to him, on account of his extraordinary outlays in cap fronts;
for he it is to whom, all day long, reports of various kinds are
incessantly being made by the junior Lieutenants; and no report is made
by them, however trivial, but caps are touched on the occasion. It is
obvious that these individual salutes must be greatly multiplied and
aggregated upon the senior Lieutenant, who must return them all.
Indeed, when a subordinate officer is first promoted to that rank, he
generally complains of the same exhaustion about the shoulder and elbow
that La Fayette mourned over, when, in visiting America, he did little
else but shake the sturdy hands of patriotic farmers from sunrise to
sunset.
The various officers of divisions having presented their respects, and
made good their return to their stations, the First Lieutenant turns
round, and, marching aft, endeavours to catch the eye of the Captain,
in order to touch his own cap to that personage, and thereby, without
adding a word of explanation, communicate the fact of all hands being
at their gun’s. He is a sort of retort, or receiver-general, to
concentrate the whole sum of the information imparted to him, and
discharge it upon his superior at one touch of his cap front.
But sometimes the Captain feels out of sorts, or in ill-humour, or is
pleased to be somewhat capricious, or has a fancy to show a touch of
his omnipotent supremacy; or, peradventure, it has so happened that the
First Lieutenant has, in some way, piqued or offended him, and he is
not unwilling to show a slight specimen of his dominion over him, even
before the eyes of all hands; at all events, only by some one of these
suppositions can the singular circumstance be accounted for, that
frequently Captain Claret would pertinaciously promenade up and down
the poop, purposely averting his eye from the First Lieutenant, who
would stand below in the most awkward suspense, waiting the first wink
from his superior’s eye.
“Now I have him!” he must have said to himself, as the Captain would
turn toward him in his walk; “now’s my time!” and up would go his hand
to his cap; but, alas! the Captain was off again; and the men at the
guns would cast sly winks at each other as the embarrassed Lieutenant
would bite his lips with suppressed vexation.
Upon some occasions this scene would be repeated several times, till at
last Captain Claret, thinking, that in the eyes of all hands, his
dignity must by this time be pretty well bolstered, would stalk towards
his subordinate, looking him full in the eyes; whereupon up goes his
hand to the cap front, and the Captain, nodding his acceptance of the
report, descends from his perch to the quarter-deck.
By this time the stately Commodore slowly emerges from his cabin, and
soon stands leaning alone against the brass rails of the
after-hatchway. In passing him, the Captain makes a profound
salutation, which his superior returns, in token that the Captain is at
perfect liberty to proceed with the ceremonies of the hour.
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