Page:The Innocents Abroad (1869).djvu/49

Rh 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 quarter-deck 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 quarter-deck when the vessel’s stern 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—!”

It was Capt. Duncan, chief of the expedition. I went forward, of course. I saw a long spy-glass 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 Capt. 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.”