ed in slavish
self-indulgence or in hoggish slumber. Every other branch of his duty
was neglected, except maintaining a stern discipline about the dinner
table. Again and again Herrick would hear the cook called aft, and see
him running with fresh tins, or carrying away again a meal that had been
totally condemned. And the more the captain became sunk in drunkenness,
the more delicate his palate showed itself. Once, in the forenoon, he
had a bo'sun's chair rigged over the rail, stripped to his trousers,
and went overboard with a pot of paint. 'I don't like the way this
schooner's painted,' said he, 'and I've taken a down upon her name.' But
he tired of it in half an hour, and the schooner went on her way with
an incongruous patch of colour on the stern, and the word Farallone part
obliterated and part looking through. He refused to stand either the
middle or the morning watch. It was fine-weather sailing, he said;
and asked, with a laugh, 'Who ever heard of the old man standing watch
himself?' To the dead reckoning which Herrick still tried to keep, he
would pay not the least attention nor afford the least assistance.

'What do we want of dead reckoning?' he asked. 'We get the sun all
right, don't we?'

'We mayn't get it always though,' objected Herrick. 'And you told me
yourself you weren't sure of the chronometer.'

'Oh, there ain't no flies in the chronometer!' cried Davis.

'Oblige me so far, captain,' said Herrick stiffly. 'I am anxious to keep
this reckoning, which is a part of my duty; I do not know what to allow
for current, nor how to allow for it. I am too inexperienced; and I beg
of you to help me.'

'Never discourage zealous officer,' said the captain, unrolling the
chart again, for Herrick had taken him over his day's work and while he
was still partly sober. 'Here it is: look for yourself; anything from
west to west no'the-west, and anyways from five to twenty-five miles.
That's what the A'm'ralty chart says; I guess you don't expect to get on
ahead of your own Britishers?'

'I am trying to do my duty, Captain Brown,' said Herrick, with a dark
flush, 'and I have the honour to inform you that I don't enjoy being
trifled with.'

'What in thunder do you want?' roared Davis. 'Go and look at the blamed
wake. If you're trying to do your duty, why don't you go and do it? I
guess it's no business of mine to go and stick my head over the ship's
rump? I guess it's yours. And I'll tell you what it is, my fine