Snarleyyow by Frederick Marryat

We must now return to the cutter, which still remains at anchor off the Point in Portsmouth harbour. It is a dark, murky, blowing day, with gusts of rain and thick fog. Mr Vanslyperken is more than usually displeased, for, as he had to wait for the new boat which he had demanded, he thought this a good opportunity of enlivening the bends of the _Yungfrau_ with a little black paint -- not before it was required, most certainly, for she was as rusty in appearance as if she had been built of old iron. But paint fetched money, and as Mr Vanslyperken always sold his, it was like parting with so much of his own property, when he ordered up the paint-pots and brushes. Now the operation of beautifying the _Yungfrau_ had been commenced the day before, and the unexpected change in the weather during the night, had washed off the greater portion of the paint, and there was not only all the trouble, but all the expense, to be incurred again.

No wonder that Mr Vanslyperken was in a bad humour -- not only in a bad humour, but in the very worst of humours. He had made up his mind to go on shore to see his mother, and was pacing the quarter-deck in his great-coat, with his umbrella under his arm, all ready to be unfurled as soon as he was on shore. He was just about to order his boat to be manned: Mr Vanslyperken looked up at the weather -- the fog was still thick, and the rain fell. You could not even make out the houses on the point. The wind had gone down considerably. Mr Vanslyperken looked over the gunnel -- the damage was even greater than he thought. He looked over the stern, there was the stage still hanging where the painters had been standing or sitting, and, what was too bad, there was a pot of paint, with the brush in it, half full of rain water, which some negligent person had left there.