The Red Eric

CHAPTER ONE.

THE TALE BEGINS WITH THE ENGAGING OF A "TAIL"--AND THE CAPTAIN DELIVERS
HIS OPINIONS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS.

Captain Dunning stood with his back to the fireplace in the back-parlour
of a temperance coffee-house in a certain town on the eastern seaboard
of America.

The name of that town is unimportant, and, for reasons with which the
reader has nothing to do, we do not mean to disclose it.

Captain Dunning, besides being the owner and commander of a South Sea
whale-ship, was the owner of a large burly body, a pair of broad
shoulders, a pair of immense red whiskers that met under his chin, a
short, red little nose, a large firm mouth, and a pair of light-blue
eyes, which, according to their owner's mood, could flash like those of
a tiger or twinkle sweetly like the eyes of a laughing child. But his
eyes seldom flashed; they more frequently twinkled, for the captain was
the very soul of kindliness and good-humour. Yet he was abrupt and
sharp in his manner, so that superficial observers sometimes said he was
hasty.

Captain Dunning was, so to speak, a sample of three primary colours--
red, blue, and yellow--a walking fragment, as it were, of the rainbow.
His hair and face, especially the nose, were red; his eyes, coat, and
pantaloons were blue, and his waistcoat was yellow.

At the time we introduce him to the reader he was standing, as we have
said, with his back to the fireplace, although there was no fire, the
weather being mild, and with his hands in his breeches pockets. Having
worked with the said hands for many long years before the mast, until he
had at last worked himself _behind_ the mast, in other words, on to the
quarterdeck and into possession of his own ship, the worthy captain
conceived that he had earned the right to give his hands a long rest;
accordingly he stowed them away in his pockets and kept them there at
all times, save when necessity compelled him to draw them forth.

"Very odd," remarked Captain Dunning, looking at his black straw hat
which lay on the table before him, as if the remark were addressed to
it--"very odd if, having swallowed the cow, I should now be compelled to
worry at the tail."

As the black straw hat made no reply, the captain looked up at the
ceiling, but not meeting with any response from that quarter, he looked
out at the window and encountered the gaze of a seaman flattening his
nose on a pane of glass, and looking in.

The captain smiled. "Ah! here's a tail at last," he said, as the seaman
disappeared, and in another moment reappeared at the door with his hat
in his hand.