Explore "The Bailiff at Sea" by W. Clark Russell on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Some time ago I heard that a bailiff had been carried off to sea whilst in the execution of his duty. Anxious to learn the nature of his voyage, how he fared, and what condition he was in, mentally and physically, when restored to his anxious relatives, I made inquiries, and my diligence was at last rewarded by meeting the mate of the vessel that had sailed away with the man. Truth obliges me to own that this mate was not what might be considered a very gentlemanly person. It was not his velvet waistcoat, nor a rather vicious squint, nor a striking-looking bald head ringed with a layer of red hair like a grummet of rope yarns; the want of genteelness was noticeable in his abundant use of what is called "langwidge. " "If I were a bailiff," thought I, as I glanced at his immense hands and huge arms which swelled out his coat-sleeves like the wind in a sailor's smallcloths drying in a strong breeze on the forestay, "I should not like to be put ‘in possession' of a house occupied by _you_, my hearty."
I took a seat opposite him and said, "So you're the mate of the vessel that stole away the county court man?"