CHAPTER XLV.
PUBLISHING POETRY IN A MAN-OF-WAR.
A day or two after our arrival in Rio, a rather amusing incidentoccurred to a particular acquaintance of mine, young Lemsford, thegun-deck bard.
The great guns of an armed ship have blocks of wood, called _tompions_,painted black, inserted in their muzzles, to keep out the spray of thesea. These tompions slip in and out very handily, like covers to butterfirkins.
By advice of a friend, Lemsford, alarmed for the fate of his box ofpoetry, had latterly made use of a particular gun on the main-deck, inthe tube of which he thrust his manuscripts, by simply crawling partlyout of the porthole, removing the tompion, inserting his papers,tightly rolled, and making all snug again.
Breakfast over, he and I were reclining in the main-top--where, bypermission of my noble master, Jack Chase, I had invited him--when, ofa sudden, we heard a cannonading. It was our own ship.
"Ah!" said a top-man, "returning the shore salute they gave usyesterday."
"O Lord!" cried Lemsford, "my _Songs of the Sirens!_" and he ran downthe rigging to the batteries; but just as he touched the gun-deck, gunNo. 20--his literary strong-box--went off with a terrific report.
"Well, my after-guard Virgil," said Jack Chase to him, as he slowlyreturned up the rigging, "did you get it? You need not answer; I seeyou were too late. But never mind, my boy: no printer could do thebusiness for you better. That's the way to publish, White-Jacket,"turning to me--"fire it right into 'em; every canto a twenty-four-poundshot; _hull_ the blockheads, whether they will or no. And mind you,Lemsford, when your shot does the most execution, your hear the leastfrom the foe. A killed man cannot even lisp."
"Glorious Jack!" cried Lemsford, running up and snatching him by thehand, "say that again, Jack! look me in the eyes. By all the Homers,Jack, you have made my soul mount like a balloon! Jack, I'm a poordevil of a poet. Not two months before I shipped aboard here, Ipublished a volume of poems, very aggressive on the world, Jack. Heavenknows what it cost me. I published it, Jack, and the cursed publishersued me for damages; my friends looked sheepish; one or two who likedit were non-committal; and as for the addle-pated mob and rabble, theythought they had found out a fool. Blast them, Jack, what they call thepublic is a monster, like the idol we saw in Owhyhee, with the head ofa jackass, the body of a baboon, and the tail of a scorpion!"
"I don't like that," said Jack; "when I'm ashore, I myself am part ofthe public."
"Your pardon, Jack; you are not, you are then a part of the people,just as you are aboard the frigate here. The public is one thing, Jack,and the people another."
"You are right," said Jack; "right as this leg. Virgil, you are atrump; you are a jewel, my boy. The public and the people! Ay, ay, mylads, let us hate the one and cleave to the other."
White Jacket; Or, The World on a Man-of-War Page 48
