bly heavier than
Quacko. However, as I never played her any tricks, which he constantly
had done, she had no objection to carry me. I consequently took my
daily ride round and round the deck, sweeping close round the mainmast
and forward again.

It is not surprising that people should lose their temper under such a
climate as our ship's company was doomed for so many years to endure.
One afternoon, just as the men had finished dinner, it being a dead
calm, the ocean like a sheet of molten lead, smooth as a mirror, the
sun's rays striking down with tremendous force on our decks, making the
pitch hiss and bubble, while one of the midshipmen was frizzling a piece
of beef on a metal plate, that he might declare when he got home,
without injuring his conscience, that it was usual to cook dinners by
the heat of the sun out in China, and the men lay about gasping for
breath, I was brought up by Pat Brady, that, as he said, I might enjoy a
breath of air, only there happened to be none at the moment, and while
I, the least important personage on board thus made my appearance on the
upper regions of our ocean world, so did the most important, the
Captain, come up to look about him, and whistle for a breeze. It did
not come however, although the Captain kept whistling and whistling away
till his cheeks must have ached. Nanny had been let out of her pen to
discuss the remains of an old straw hat, the other part of which had
been given her for her supper the previous evening, when it came into
Pat Brady's head to place me on her back; I, nothing loth, sung out for
my broadsword, with which I began forthwith to whack the hinder quarters
of my long-horned steed. Off she set, but instead of wheeling round the
mainmast, on she galloped along the forbidden district of the
quarter-deck. The Captain just at that moment, with a stamp of his
foot, vexed at his not getting the wished-for wind, turned round, when
Nanny and I, at a furious speed, dashed bolt against him; and the goat,
catching him between the legs by the impetus she had obtained, sent him
sprawling on the deck, and her horns catching in his coat-tails, he and
she and I all went rolling over together. There we lay, the Captain
spluttering and swearing incontinently, though scarcely able in his rage
to utter a word clearly, the goat tugging away to get again on her legs,
I all the time shrieking out lustily for help. The officers, who had
been pacing the other side of the