Anecdotal

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 35, 31 March 1894, Page 11

Anecdotal

A NERVOUS FRENCHMAN. Among Mr Lester Wal lack’s “Memories” are some relating to ‘•the most nervous creature” he ever saw. Se g'uor De Heg’nis, a singer, who went over to the United States in the same ship with Mr -Wal lack and his father in 1888. He was about six feet in height, portly and pompons, and wore a huge velvet cloak and a black velvet cap. His grand appearance made his childish ignorance and cowardice all the more amusing. Everything he saw filled him with wonder, which he expressed without reserve. Two nights after the ship sailed, the captain, thinking it was coming on to blow, sent aloft to shorten sail. De Bignis was excited. “ Oh, ah, mon captaiue, de man! What he go up dere for ? Why he go np the pole ?” “He is going to reef the topsail,” replied the captain. “ To do what P” “ To reef the topsail.” “To reefa de top of the sail ? In the dark ! Mon dieu ! now he go higher, and without a candle.” He was never seasick, but was so timid that he was happy only in a dead calm. When ’ the rest of the passengers were scolding about the delaj' he would say, “Ah, it is beautiful ;itis a callum to-day. I am not afright When it blow lam afright. To-day it is a callum and I go to play Ver; t. ’

Mr Wallack, who was then hardly more than a boy, used to climb to the mizzentop with a book in his pocket, and sit there with his arm around a i-ope and read by the hour. The first time that De Bignis saw him going up the shrouds, he shouted, “Ha, look at do 3’oung Wallack! Don’t go up dere, you fools. Suppose de strings was to broke!” One night it was blowing hard and the ship was “taken aback.” Mr Wallack’s father, being an old sailor, knew what it meant, and sung out to the steward, “ Shut in the deadlights!” The next morning the sea had gone down, and De Bignis, who had been dreadfully scared, said : “ I was not the only one afright. There was the old Wallack. I hear him call to de steward to give him a light to die by.” On the first day out, when the ship was “ on the wind.” lying pretty well over, De Bignis, only half-dressed stuck his head info the main cabin aridsaid ; “ Steward! Where is de steward ? Aska de captaine why the ship goes so crook ! Tell him do Signor de Begnis cannot shave !” Standing one day beside the wheel, he said, “ What that man he do ; he turn the wheel around t” “ He steers the vessel,” the captain answered. “What is dat he keeps a-looking at like a fool f” “ That is the compass. He watches the compass and steers the vessel by it.” “ Ha, dat is a umpick ’’(humbug). “ How do you suppose we find our way across the ocean then ?” asked the captain. “You get de ship by de shore, you put up de sail, de wind she blow, and you go dis way and dat "way, sometines de straight way, and after a while you get dere by chance, Hod knows how ! And yet you tell me dat de man he make her go straight when he turn de wheel round ! Umpick ! All umpick.”