Young gentleman! ask Captain
Dodd to oblige me by coming on deck! Hy! and Mr. Fullalove too."
"Young gentleman?" inquired Collier. "What the devil officer is that?"
"That is a name we give the middies; I don't know why."
"Nor I neither; ha! ha!"
Dodd and Fullalove came on deck, and Commodore Collier bestowed the
highest compliments on the "makeshift." Dodd begged him to transfer them
to the real inventor, and introduced Fullalove.
"Ay," said Collier, "I know you Yankees are very handy. I lost my rudder
at sea once, and had to ship a makeshift; but it was a cursed complicated
thing, not a patch upon yours, Mr. Fullalove. Yours is ingenious and
_simple._ Ship has been in action, I see: pray how was that, if I may be
so bold?"
"Pirates, commodore," said Sharpe. "We fell in with a brace of Portuguese
devils, lateen-rigged, and carrying ten guns apiece, in the Straits of
Gaspar: fought 'em from noon till sundown, riddled one, and ran down the
other, and sunk her in a moment. That was all your doing, Captain: so
don't try to shift it on other people; for we won't stand it.
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