It is a fine day for pleasuring. You were about to say—”


“Oh, my!”


I thought so. I anticipated him, anyhow. I stayed there and was bombarded with old gentlemen for an hour, perhaps; and all I got out of any of them was “Oh, my!”


I went away then in a thoughtful mood. I said, this is a good pleasure excursion. I like it. The passengers are not garrulous, but still they are sociable. I like those old people, but somehow they all seem to have the “Oh, my” rather bad.


I knew what was the matter with them. They were seasick. And I was glad of it. We all like to see people seasick when we are not, ourselves. Playing whist by the cabin lamps when it is storming outside is pleasant; walking the quarterdeck in the moonlight is pleasant; smoking in the breezy foretop is pleasant when one is not afraid to go up there; but these are all feeble and commonplace compared with the joy of seeing people suffering the miseries of seasickness.


I picked up a good deal of information during the afternoon. At one time I was climbing up the quarterdeck when the vessel’s stem was in the sky; I was smoking a cigar and feeling passably comfortable. Somebody ejaculated:


“Come, now, that won’t answer. Read the sign up there—NO SMOKING ABAFT THE WHEEL!”


It was Captain Duncan, chief of the expedition. I went forward, of course. I saw a long spyglass lying on a desk in one of the upper-deck state-rooms back of the pilot-house and reached after it—there was a ship in the distance.


“Ah, ah—hands off! Come out of that!”


I came out of that. I said to a deck-sweep—but in a low voice:


“Who is that overgrown pirate with the whiskers and the discordant voice?”


“It’s Captain Bursley—executive officer—sailing master.”


I loitered about awhile, and then, for want of something better to do, fell to carving a railing with my knife. Somebody said, in an insinuating, admonitory voice:


“Now, say—my friend—don’t you know any better than to be whittling the ship all to pieces that way? You ought to know better than that.”


I went back and found the deck sweep.


“Who is that smooth-faced, animated outrage yonder in the fine clothes?”


“That’s Captain L****, the owner of the ship—he’s one of the main bosses.”


In the course of time I brought up on the starboard side of the pilot-house and found a sextant lying on a bench. Now, I said, they “take the sun” through this thing; I should think I might see that vessel through it. I had hardly got it to my eye when someone touched me on the shoulder and said deprecatingly:


“I’ll have to get you to give that to me, Sir. If there’s anything you’d like to know about taking the sun, I’d as soon tell you as not—but I don’t like to trust anybody with that instrument. If you want any figuring done—Aye, aye, sir!”


He was gone to answer a call from the other side. I sought the deck-sweep.


“Who is that spider-legged gorilla yonder with the sanctimonious countenance?”


“It’s Captain Jones, sir—the chief mate.”


“Well. This goes clear away ahead of anything I ever heard of before.