" Our honest, fat, old captain says this
very grimly in his thick, broad voice.
'My head won't stand much writing yet, so I will run up and take a
look at the blue night sky off the coast of Portugal.
'May 26.
'A nice lad of some two and twenty, A- by name, goes out in a
nondescript capacity as part purser, part telegraph clerk, part
generally useful person. A- was a great comfort during the
miseries [of the gale]; for when with a dead head wind and a heavy
sea, plates, books, papers, stomachs were being rolled about in sad
confusion, we generally managed to lie on our backs, and grin, and
try discordant staves of the FLOWERS OF THE FOREST and the LOW-
BACKED CAR. We could sing and laugh, when we could do nothing
else; though A- was ready to swear after each fit was past, that
that was the first time he had felt anything, and at this moment
would declare in broad Scotch that he'd never been sick at all,
qualifying the oath with "except for a minute now and then." He
brought a cornet-a-piston to practice on, having had three weeks'
instructions on that melodious instrument; and if you could hear
the horrid sounds that come! especially at heavy rolls.
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