Six Months in Reunion (1860)
by Patrick Beaton (9780217791700)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 6 AN IRISH. STEWARD. made miserable for life was soon afterwards found drowned. Wth June. ? We have been beating off and on in the Channel, with the wind right against us. The most remarkable event on board has been the dismissal of the steward, and the appointment of a new Ganymede to supply his place. He shipped as an American from Philadelphia; but his rich brogue proved that he was a native of Erin's green isle. His early education having been neglected, he had never mastered the mysteries of the alphabet, and would persist in bringing us sherry instead of beer, and in mistaking port for porter. Having been repeatedly reproved in terms more vigorous than delicate, he endeavoured to supply the defects of his education by the accuracy of his taste. In other words, he learned to distinguish the different bottles by imbibing part of their contents before bringing them to table. One day, having required to drink more than usual in order THE STEWARD DEPOSED. 7 to solve his doubts, he betrayed a certain unsteadiness in his gait, and nearly rolled over the skipper at table, who declared him to be drunk, and degraded him from his office of cup-bearer, which was bestowed upon a sailor of diminutive size, who could distinguish port from porter without having recourse to the Irishman's test. To relieve my solitude, I undertook to feed, nourish, and protect three little canaries, and expected that they in return would cheer me by their pleasant songs. In this expectation I was doomed to disappointment. One night a cat on board contrived by feline astuteness to seduce the little songsters to the side of the cage, and ruthlessly throttled the whole three before morning. The act was all the more indefensible, because she could not eat them. It was a cold-blooded act of murder, ...

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