There is my own Mary--un peu passee
certainly--but deil mean her, for half a dozen lit"--"Now, Tom Cringle,
don't bother with your sentimentality, but get along, do."--"Well, I
will get along--but have patience, you Hottentot Venus--you Lord Nugent,
you. So once more we make sail."
Next morning, soon after gunfire, I landed at the Wherry wharf in Port
Royal. It was barely daylight, but, to my surprise, I found my friend
Peregrine Whiffle seated on a Spanish chair, close to the edge of the
wharf, smoking a cigar. This piece of furniture is an arm--chair
strongly framed with hard--wood, over which, back and bottom, a tanned
hide is stretched, which, in a hot climate, forms a most luxurious seat,
the back tumbling out at an angle of 45 degrees, while the skin yields
to every movement, and does not harbour a nest of biting ants, or a
litter of scorpions, or any other of the customary occupants of a
cushion that has been in Jamaica for a year.
He did not know me as I passed; but his small glimmering red face
instantly identified the worthy little old man to me.
"Good morning, Mr Whiffle--the top of the morning to you, sir."
"Hillo," responded Peregrine--"Tom, is it you?--how d'ye do, man--how
d'ye do?" and he started to his feet, and almost embraced me.
Now, I had never met the said Peregrine Whiffle but twice in my life;
once at Mr Fyall's, and once during the few days I remained in Kingston,
before I set out on my travels; but he was a warm hearted kindly old
fellow, and, from knowing all my friends there very intimately, he, as a
matter of course, became equally familiar with me.
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