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said to be drunk a snail may be said to have a gait—instead of time crawling, it hurries, not to say dashes past me. I cannot get one tenth of the day down! It is late; and I must continue tomorrow.

(5)
    That fourth day, then—though indeed the fifth—but to continue.
    After the captain had turned to the stern rail I remained for some time endeavouring to engage Mr Cumbershum in conversation. He answered me in the fewest possible words and I began to understand that he was uneasy in the captain’s presence. However, I did not wish to leave the quarterdeck as if retreating from it.
    “Cumbershum,” said I, “the motion is easier. Show me more of our ship. Or if you feel it inadvisable to interrupt the management of her, lend me this young fellow to be my conductor.”
    The young fellow in question, Cumbershum’s satellite, was a midshipman—not one of your ancients, stuck in his inferior position like a goat in a bush, but an example of the breed that brings a tear to every maternal eye—in a sentence, a pustular lad of fourteen or fifteen, addressed, as I soon found in pious hope, as a “Young Gentleman.” It was some time before Cumbershum answered me, the lad looking from the one to the other of us meanwhile. At last Mr Cumbershum said the lad, Mr Willis by name, might go with me. So my object was gained. I left the Sacred Precincts with dignity and indeed had despoiled it of a votary. As we descended the ladder there was a hail from Mr Cumbershum.
    “Mr Willis, Mr Willis! Do not omit to invite Mr Talbot to glance at the captain’s Standing Orders. You may transmit to me any suggestions he has for their improvement.”
    I laughed heartily at this sally though Willis did not seem to be amused by it. He is not merely pustular butpale, and he commonly lets his mouth hang open. He asked me what I would choose to see and I had no idea, having used him to get me off the quarterdeck suitably attended. I nodded towards the forward part of the vessel.
    “Let us stroll thither,” said I, “and see how the people live.”
    Willis followed me with some hesitation in the shadow of the boats on the boom, across the white line at the main mast, then between the pens where our beasts are kept. He passed me then and led the way up a ladder to the front or fo’castle , where was the capstan, the belfry, some loungers and a woman plucking a chicken. I went towards the bowsprit and looked down. I became aware of the age of this old crone of a ship for she is positively beaked in the manner of the last century and flimsy, I should judge, about the bow withal. I looked over her monstrous figurehead, emblem of her name and which our people as is their custom have turned colloquially into an obscenity with which I will not trouble your lordship . But the sight of the men down there squatting in the heads at their business was distasteful and some of them looked up at me with what seemed like impertinence. I turned away and gazed along her vast length and to the vaster expanse of dark blue ocean that surrounded us.
    “Well sir,” said I to Willis, “we are certainly making way ἐπ’ εὐρέα νῶτα θαλάσσης , are we not?”
    Willis replied that he did not know French.
    “What do you know then, lad?”
    “The rigging sir, the parts of the ship, bends and hitches, the points of the compass, the marks of the lead-line to take a bearing off a point of land or a mark and to shoot the sun.”
    “We are in good hands I see.”
    “There is more than that, sir,” said he, “as for examplethe parts of a gun, the composition of powder to sweeten the bilge and the Articles of War.”
    “You must not sweeten the Articles of War,” said I solemnly. “We must not be kinder to each other than the French are to us! It seems to me that your education is piled all on top of itself like my lady mother’s sewing closet! But what is the composition of the powder that enables you to shoot the sun and should you not be