"Now, Mr. Kitten," says Pordage, "I instruct you, as Vice-commissioner,
and Deputy-consul of this place, to demand of Captain Maryon, of the
sloop Christopher Columbus, whether he drives me to the act of putting
this coat on?"
"Mr. Pordage," says Captain Maryon, looking out of his hammock again, "as
I can hear what you say, I can answer it without troubling the gentleman.
I should be sorry that you should be at the pains of putting on too hot a
coat on my account; but, otherwise, you may put it on hind-side before,
or inside-out, or with your legs in the sleeves, or your head in the
skirts, for any objection that I have to offer to your thoroughly
pleasing yourself."
"Very good, Captain Maryon," says Pordage, in a tremendous passion. "Very
good, sir. Be the consequences on your own head! Mr. Kitten, as it has
come to this, help me on with it."
When he had given that order, he walked off in the coat, and all our
names were taken, and I was afterwards told that Mr. Kitten wrote from
his dictation more than a bushel of large paper on the subject, which
cost more before it was done with, than ever could be calculated, and
which only got done with after all, by being lost.
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