Perry inspected the Cap'n's state-room. There was a cracked
looking-glass, into which he looked; a hair-brush suspended by the
glass, which he used; a lair of blankets in a berth, which he had no
present use for; and a smell of musty boots, which nobody with a nose
could help smelling. Still no Captain Ambuster, nor any of his crew.
Search in the unsavory kitchen revealed no cook, coiled up in a corner,
suffering nightmares for the last greasy dinner he had brewed in his
frying-pan. There were no deck hands bundled into their bunks. Perry
rapped on the chain-box and inquired if anybody was within, and nobody
answering, he had to ventriloquize a negative.
The engine-room, too, was vacant, and quite as unsavory as the other
dens on board. Perry patronized the engine by a pull or two at the
valves, and continued his tour of inspection.
The Ambuster's skiff, lying on her forward deck, seemed to entertain him
vastly.
"Jolly!" says Perry. And so it was a jolly boat in the literal, not the
technical sense.
"The three wise men of Gotham went to sea in a bowl; and here's the
identical craft," says Perry.
He gave the chubby little machine a push with his foot. It rolled and
wallowed about grotesquely. When it was still again, it looked so comic,
lying contentedly on its fat side like a pudgy baby, that Perry had a
roar of laughter, which, like other laughter to one's self, did not
sound very merry, particularly as the north-wind was howling ominously,
and the broken ice on its downward way was whispering and moaning and
talking on in a most mysterious and inarticulate manner.
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