Page:The Pinafore Picture Book.djvu/38

 Little Buttercup had hit off their various weaknesses with surprising accuracy.

"Let's change the subject," said Bill Bobstay (he was the one who ate sugar-plums in bed), "we all have our faults. But, after all, we're not so bad as poor Dick Deadeye—that's one comfort!"

Now this was very unjust on the part of Mr. Bobstay. Dick Deadeye, who sat apart from the others, busy manicuring his nails, was one of the ugliest persons who ever entered the Navy. His face had been so knocked about and burnt and scarred in various battles and from falling down from aloft, that not one feature was in its proper place. The wags among the crew pretended that his two eyes, his nose, and his mouth, had been playing "Puss in the Corner," and that his left eye, having been unable to find a corner that was unoccupied, was consequently left in the middle. Of course this was only their nonsense, but it shows what a very plain man he must have been. He was hump-backed, and bandy-legged, and round-shouldered, and hollow-chested, and severely pitted with small-pox marks. He had broken both his arms, both his legs, his two collar-bones, and all his ribs, and looked just as if he had been crumpled up in the hand of some enormous