in lighting on such a fine specimen of the genus homo, who
in the nude might have passed for a statue of young Adam before the Fall.
    As to Billy's adieu to the ship Rights-of-Man, which the boarding
lieutenant, in a deferential way, had indeed reported to him, Captain Vere, more
as a good story than aught else (having mistakenly understood it as a satiric
sally), had but thought so much the better of the impressed man for it; as a
military sailor, admiring the spirit that could take an arbitrary enlistment so
merrily and sensibly. The foretopman's conduct, too, so far as it had fallen
under the captain's notice, had confirmed the first happy augury, while the new
recruit's qualities as a sailor-man seemed to be such that he had thought of
recommending him to the executive officer for promotion to a place that would
more frequently bring him under his own observation, namely, the captaincy of
the mizen-top, replacing there in the starboard-watch a man not so young whom
partly for that reason he deemed less fitted for the post. Be it parenthesised
here that since the mizen-topmen have not to handle such breadths of heavy
canvas as the lower sails on the mainmast and foremast, a young man if of the
right stuff not only seems best adapted to duty there, but, in fact, is
generally selected for the captaincy of that top, and the company under him are
light hands, and often but striplings. In sum, Captain Vere had from the
beginning deemed Billy Budd to be what in the naval parlance of the time was
called a King's bargain, that is to say, for His Britannic Majesty's Navy a
capital investment at small outlay or none at all.
    After a brief pause, during which the reminiscences above mentioned passed
vividly through his mind, he weighed the import of Claggart's last suggestion
conveyed in the phrase »a man-trap under his ruddy-tipped daisies,« and the more
he weighed it the less reliance he felt in the informer's good faith. Suddenly
he turned upon him: »Do you come to me, master-at-arms, with so foggy a tale? As
to Budd, cite me an act or spoken word of his confirmatory of what you in
general charge against him. Stay,« drawing nearer to him, »heed what you speak.
Just now and in a case like this, there is a yard-arm-end for the false
witness.«
    »Ah,