Mr. Blunt was less elaborate in his salute, but as
pointed as the circumstances at all required. Both gentlemen were a little
struck with the distant hauteur of John Effingham, whose bow, while it
fulfilled all the outward forms, was what Eve used laughingly to term
"imperial." The bustle of preparation, and the certainty that there would
be no want of opportunities to renew the intercourse, prevented more than
the general salutations, and the new-comers descended to their
state-rooms.
"Did you remark the manner in which those people took my introduction?"
asked Captain Truck of his chief mate, whom he was training up in the ways
of packet-politeness, as one in the road of preferment. "Now, to my
notion, they might have shook hands at least. That's what I call
_Vattel_."
"One sometimes falls in with what are _rum_ chaps," returned the other,
who, from following the London trade, had caught a few cockneyisms. "If a
man chooses to keep his hands in the beckets, why let him, say I; but I
take it as a slight to the company to sheer out of the usual track in
such matters."
"I was thinking as much myself; but after all, what can packet-masters do
in such a case? We can set luncheon and dinner before the passengers, but
we can't make them eat. Now, my rule is, when a gentleman introduces me,
to do the thing handsomely, and to return shake for shake, if it is three
times three; but as for a touch of the beaver, it is like setting a
top-gallant sail in passing a ship at sea, and means just nothing at all.
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