Be this as it may, it cost the clerk half-an-hour to write down a list of their multifarious goods and chattels, while a single scratch of the pen sufficed for that of all the Irishmen.
At last honest Saunders came under review.

He was a tall, raw-boned, grave-looking personage, much pitted with the smallpox, and wearing a good deal of that harassed and melancholy air, which, sooner or later, settles on the brow of an assistant to a village pedagogue.

He was startled, but not abashed, when drawn to the middle of the deck, and asked, in the presence of fifty persons, what clothes and other things he possessed?
Not choosing at first to betray his poverty, he made no answer, but looked round, as if to discover where his chest had been placed.

He then glanced at his thread-bare sleeve and tattered shoon, with a slight touch of dry and bitter humour playing about the corners of his mouth, and a faint sparkle lighting up his grey and sunken eye, as he returned the impatient official stare of the clerk, who stood, pen in hand, ready to note down the items.
"Don't be frightened, man," said the captain; "no one is going to hurt you, your things are quite safe.

What does your property consist of ?" "A trifle, sir, a trifle," quoth poor Sawney; "fourpence ha'penny and an auld knife!" Before concluding this subject, it may perhaps be useful to remark, that, unless in those cases where such a measure is absolutely necessary, the actual examination and minute recording of the men's clothes might, in general, be advantageously dispensed with.