omparing their nautical
experience to "a dog's life"--albeit they never give up the sea all the
same!

On board the _Josephine_, however, all went along pleasantly enough,
although we were becalmed and the seamen, had plenty of leisure time for
airing their grievances.

Captain Miles, it is true, did not come on deck looking jolly and
beaming with good-humour, as he used to do when we were bowling along
before a stiff breeze; but he was not a bit cantankerous, and if there
was no legitimate work to occupy the crew with, he did not go out of his
way unnecessarily to "haze" them by inventing new sorts of tasks, as a
good many other masters of vessels are in the habit of doing in similar
cases. As for Mr Marline, he was of a most even disposition, taking
all things that came with his usual equanimity and never giving a rough
word to anyone.

Davis, the second mate, whom I have already mentioned as having been
promoted from the fo'c's'le, was a very different sort of man; for,
being without education and any good principle, he took advantage of his
position, whenever the captain's eye was not upon him, to bully those
with whom he had previously associated on an equality. He was "very
much above them now," he thought, and showed it as it was in the nature
only of a low-minded fellow to do.

Like most "Jacks in office," he was always trying to assert his
position; and, as a natural result, he was not by any means in good
favour with the men, who resented his overbearing way all the more from
the fact of their having formerly been hail-fellow-well-met with him,
which of course they could not readily forget, if he did.

Still, things went on pretty smoothly on board while the calm lasted,
despite the little roughnesses which the second mate's way of evincing
his authority produced--and which I could not avoid noticing, for I'm
sure he used to be "down" on me whenever he had a chance of calling me
to account for going where I had no business to, as I confess I
sometimes did, although I used to be encouraged by the men, and Mr
Marline would wink at my escapades. We all found it terribly dull,
though; for, even the fish were too lazy to come to the surface to be
caught, and so we were deprived therefore of our old pastime of angling
for them from the bowsprit in the afternoons and evenings.

Day after day, the _Josephine_ rolled her hull from port to starboard
and then back again to port on the tumid sea, which, save thr