TEDDY. 195 



men of mortality as one could expect to meet with 

 in so out of the way a place as a whale ship. He 

 was the self-constituted hero of numberless adven- 

 tures, which he could impart in a manner entirely 

 his own, never thinking of concealing personal 

 defects, and laughing as heartily at his own mis- 

 haps as those of any one else. 



Teddy had served an apprenticeship to whaling 

 in the cold regions of Desolation, and was not, 

 therefore, remarkable for personal cleanliness or 

 neatness. He gave it as his deliberate opinion, 

 that too much washing was deleterious to the 

 health, besides involving an unnecessary waste 

 of time. His clothes, which were patched even 

 beyond the mark of whalemen in general, pre- 

 sented a variety of hues which reminded one of 

 Joseph's coat of many colors j they fitted him with 

 a studied awkwardness which could not fail to 

 attract attention from the most casual observer, 

 and excited in me most unbounded admiration. 



With his ill-fitting and well-patched shirt, his 

 scraggy head of fiery red hair overhanging his 

 face, and thin whiskers of the same color, which 

 he was used to say required a drum and fife to 

 marshal them together, Teddy put one very macb 

 in mind of the little rough-haired Scotch terrier*,, 

 so famous as ratters. So striking was this resem 

 Olance, that I was led one day to ask him if he 

 had ever followed the business of rat-catching. 

 With a huge grin, such as only Teddy ccnld 



