Beadle's Dime Novels No. 87: On the Deep — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

10 ON THE DEEP. last it seemed to fade away in a blue mist. Then, stifling a sob, the young girl buried her face in her hands. Her grief did not escape the attention of the officers. The captain, a plump, weather-beaten old sea-dog, moved toward her, intending to make an effort at consolation ; but he was prevented by his first mate, Mr. Block, who confronted him with a solemn shake of the head, and a warning motion of the hand. Never having been married, the skipper had great faith in the knowledge of vomankind possessed by a man who, like Block, had buried three wives; so, moving on tip- toe to the lee side of the quarter-deck, Re beckoned the mate to his side, anxious to learn the cause of his mysterious panto- ‘ mimé, which, he doubted not, was connected with some won- derful secret of the female heart. It may be as well to state here, that the mate, while @X- ceedingly vain of his knowledge of the gentler sex, prided himself still more upon what he was. pleased to term his “<th’rough ’ acquaintance with Walker’s Dictionary,” an old copy of which always was kept upon a shelf near his berth, with- in easy reach of his hand, when he retired, From this volume he was in the habit of committing to memory such lengthy and high sounding words as, in his opinion, would, dignify his conversation, and impress his auditors with the belief that he was a man of profound wisdom and erudition. Unfortunate- ly, however, he never deemed it necessary to learn the define- tions of the words selected; and the result of this neglect was that they were as much out of place in the expressions he used, as plums would have been in sea-biscuits, or delicate sauces served up with tough pieces of salt junk. Their effect was rendered all the more striking by faulty pronunciation, and. by their coming. from a mouth twisted considerably to one side from long and constart use of the weed. Moreover, this feature was surmounted by a “ club ” nose, which divided a pair of hard matter-of-fact eyes, so accustomed to looking to windward that every spark of intellectual fire had been— if I may be allowed the expression—extinguished by the sea breeze. Moving his head slowly and myster busi from.side to side, this worthy now-placed one hand upon the captain’s shoulder, and with the. other atin’ significantly toward the fair comicbooks.com