To All Which Questions, A Young Lieutenant,
Standing With His Hat Off At The Gangway, Politely
Responded.
Apparently satisfied on these points, our
invisible interlocutor then announced his intention of
coming on board.
All the officers of the ship collected
on the poop to receive him.
In a few seconds more, amid the din of the most unearthly
music, and surrounded by a bevy of hideous monsters, a
white-bearded, spectacled personage-clad in bear-skin,
with a cocked hat over his left ear-presented himself in
the gangway, and handing to the officers of the watch an
enormous board, on which was written
"LE PERE ARCTIQUE,"
by way of visiting card, proceeded to walk aft, and take
the sun's altitude with what, as far as I could make out,
seemed to be a plumber's wooden triangle. This preliminary
operation having been completed, there then began a
regular riot all over the ship. The yards were suddenly
manned with red devils, black monkeys, and every kind of
grotesque monster, while the whole ship's company, officers
and men promiscuously mingled, danced the cancan upon
deck. In order that the warmth of the day should not make
us forget that we had arrived in his dominions, the Arctic
father had stationed certain of his familiars in the
tops, who at stated intervals flung down showers of hard
peas, as typical of hail, while the powdering of each
other's faces with handfuls of flour could not fail to
remind everybody on board that we had reached the latitude
of snow.
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