I believe I need scarce advertise the reader that, during this whole
entertainment, the commodore and his lieutenant were quite out of
their element; and this, indeed, was the case with the bridegroom
himself, who being utterly unacquainted with any sort of polite
commerce, found himself under a very disagreeable restraint during
the whole scene.
Trunnion, who had scarce ever been on shore till he was paid off,
and never once in his whole life in the company of any females
above the rank of those who herd on the Point at Portsmouth, was
more embarrassed about his behaviour than if he had been surrounded
at sea by the whole French navy. He had never pronounced the word
"madam" since he was born; so that, far from entering into conversation
with the ladies, he would not even return the compliment, or give
the least note of civility when they drank to his health, and, I
verily believe, would rather have suffered suffocation than allowed
the simple phrase--"your servant," to proceed from his mouth. He
was altogether as inflexible with respect to the attitudes of his
body; for, either through obstinacy or bashfulness, he sat upright
without motion, insomuch that he provoked the mirth of a certain
wag, who, addressing himself to the lieutenant, asked whether that
was the commodore himself, or the wooden lion that used to stand
at his gate?--an image, to which, it must be owned, Mr.
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