Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/674

244 same. Mr. Kitten, a small, youngish, bald, botannical and mineralogical gentleman, also connected with the mine—but everybody there was that, more or less—was sometimes called by Commissioner Pordage, his vice-commissioner, and sometimes his deputy consul. Or sometimes he spoke of Mr. Kitten, merely as being "under government." The beach was beginning to be a lively scene with the preparation for careening the sloop, and with cargo, and spars, and rigging, and water-casks, dotted about it, and with temporary quarters for the men rising up there out of such sails and odd and ends as could be best set on one side to make them, when Mr. Commissioner Pordage comes down in a high fluster, and asks for Captain Maryon. The captain, ill as he was, was slung in his hammock betwixt two trees, that he might direct; and he raised his head, and answered for himself.

"Captain Maryon," cries Mr. Commissioner Pordage,

"this is not officfal. This is not regular."

"Sir," says the captain, "it hath been arranged with the clerk and supercargo, that you should be communicated with, and requested to render any little assistance that may lie in your power. I am quite certain that hath been duly done."

"Captain Maryon," replies Mr. Commissioner Pordage, "there hath been no written correspondence. No documents have passed, no memoranda have been made, no minutes have been made, no entries and counter-entries appear in the official muniments. This is indecent. I call upon you, sir, to desist, until all is regular, or government will take this up."

"Sir," says Captain Maryon, chafing a little, as he looked out of his hammock; "between the chances of government taking this up, and my ship taking herself down, I much prefer to trust myself to the former."

"You do, sir?" cries Mr. Commissioner Pordage.

"I do, sir," says Captain Maryon, lying down again.

"Then, Mr. Kitten," says the commissioner, "send up instantly for my diplomatic coat."

He was dressed in a linen suit at that moment; but Mr. Kitten started off himself and brought down the diplomatic coat, which was a blue cloth one, gold-laced, and with a crown on the button.