"Perhaps you would like to see our figurehead, sir," said Babbington [captain of the
HMS Oedipus]. "It is a new one: in the Grecian taste, I believe."
Oedipus might well have been in the Grecian taste, if the Greeks had been much given to thick paint, an insipid smirk, eyes fixed in a meaningless glare, and scarlet cheeks. The two captains stared at the image and after a while Jack said, "I was never any great fist at the classics, but was there not something rather odd about his feet?"
"I believe there was, sir. But fortunately they don't show, he being cut off at the waist."
"Though now I come to think of it, was it not his marriage, rather than his feet?"
"Perhaps it was both, sir; they might go together. And I seem to recall something in Gregory's
Polite Education to that effect."
Captain [Jack] Aubrey pondered, staring at the dolphin-striker. "I have it," he cried. "You are quite right; both marriage and feet. I remember the Doctor telling me the whole story when we lay alongside the
Jocasta in Rosia Bay. I do not mean the least fling at your figurehead, and still less your brig, Babbington, but that family was really not the thing, you know."