About noon we saw a vessel on a wind to leeward of us, which was a source of great delight to us all, and we bore down to her. We soon made her out to be an hermaphrodite brig, under her close-reefed topsails and trysails.

`Little 'un snoozin'!' Jinny remarked, lurching giddily towards her to merrily twirl her fist in the snoozer.

If you read between the lines a little, you will realize that he has deeper motives.

The RSPCA were well aware that ratting was legally ambiguous, and when they received a report of a conviction for ratting in Hull in 1868 they doubted the legality of it.