or something about yourself--which reminds me I have a question to ask.
It is a bit delicate, but you look a sensible sort of fellow, and will
take no offence. The fact is, I have noticed as we came along half your
population dresses in all the colours of the rainbow--'fancy suitings'
our tailors could call it at home--and this half of the census are
undoubtedly men and women. The rub is that the other half, to which you
belong, all dress alike in YELLOW, and I will be fired from the biggest
gun on the Carolina's main deck if I can tell what sex you belong to!
I took you for a boy in the beginning, and the way you closed with the
idea of having a drink with me seemed to show I was dead on the right
course. Then a little later on I heard you and a friend abusing our
sex from an outside point of view in a way which was very disconcerting.
This, and some other things, have set me all abroad again, and as fate
seems determined to make us chums for this voyage--why--well, frankly,
I should be glad to know if you be boy or girl? If you are as I am,
no more nor less then--for I like you--there's my hand in comradeship.
If you are otherwise, as those sleek outlines seem to promise--why,
here's my hand again! But man or woman you must be--come, which is it?"

If I had been perplexed before, to watch that boy now was more curious
than ever. He drew back from me with a show of wounded dignity, then
bit his lips, and sighed, and stared, and frowned. "Come," I said
laughingly, "speak! it engenders ambiguity to be so ambiguous of gender!
'Tis no great matter, yes or no, a plain answer will set us fairly in
our friendship; if it is comrade, then comrade let it be; if maid, why,
I shall not quarrel with that, though it cost me a likely messmate."

"You mock me."

"Not I, I never mocked any one."