g himself,
whom he most truthfully depicted as a common or barn owl. Or was it I
who drew him as the owl? I forget. But I do know that he looked
uncommonly like one as a rule, for he used to lie wrapped in his
Inverness upon a deck chair, his face only visible, with pallid cheeks
and distended eyes, and I did more than one caricature of him for his
fair admirers. That was on the rough days, for like a great many
foreigners, and English people too for the matter of that, he was a bad
sailor. Fortunately for me, I am a hardened sailor, and as such cannot
feel the amount of consideration I should otherwise do for those less
lucky than myself.

When the weather was calm I used to notice my Italian friend seated,
surrounded by the ladies, with an air of triumph and a smile upon his
intelligent visage. He was having his revenge! When he was not
sketching, he was playing chess with the Captain.

Now this commander was a captain from the top of his head to the soles
of his feet. A stern disciplinarian, erect, handsome, uncommunicative,
not a better officer ever stood on the bridge of an Atlantic or any
other liner. He had a contempt for the "Herring Pond," and manipulated
one of these floating hotels with as much ease as one would handle a toy
boat. "When a navigator's duty's to be done," he was _par excellence_ a
modern Caesar, but despite his sternness he had a sense of humour, and
his unbending moments struck one with an emphasised surprise.

[Illustration: NOT UP IN A BALLOON.]

He could not bear a bore. Those fussy landlubbers who are always tapping
the barometers, asking questions of every member of the crew, testing,
sounding, and finding fault with the weather chart, had better steer
clear of the worthy Captain, as with hands thrust deep in his pockets he
strides from one end of the deck to the other during the course of his
constitutional. It is on record that one of these fussy individuals,
edging up to a well-known Captain as he was going on to the bridge when
a mist was gathering, and the siren was about to blow as customary when
entering on an Atlantic fog, remarked:

"Captain, Captain, can't you see that it is quite clear overhead?"

The Captain turned on his heel to ascend to the bridge, and scornfully
rejoined:

"Yes, sir, yes, sir; but can't you see that I am not navigating a
balloon?"

On one occasion the Captain had been through a terribly stormy afternoon
and night, and had not quitted his post on