My wits are in the doldrums.' He went up to Mr.Peterborough, and, with an air of great sincerity and courtesy, requested him in French to create a diversion for her Highness the Margravine of Rippau during the extreme heat of the afternoon by precipitating himself headlong into forty fathoms, either attached or unattached.

His art in baffling Mr.Peterborough's attempts to treat the unheard-of request as a jest was extraordinary.

The ingenuity of his successive pleas for pressing such a request pertinaciously upon Mr.Peterborough in particular, his fixed eye, yet cordial deferential manner, and the stretch of his forefinger, and argumentative turn of the head--indicative of an armed disputant fully on the alert, and as if it were of profound and momentous importance that he should thoroughly defeat and convince his man--overwhelmed us.

Mr.Peterborough, not being supple in French, fell back upon his English with a flickering smile of protestation; but even in his native tongue he could make no head against the tremendous volubility and brief eager pauses besetting him.
The farce was too evanescent for me to reproduce it.
Peterborough turned and fled to his cabin.

Half the crew were on the broad grin.