"like a big brute as he
is," and does not seem to care what Tomlin thinks or how he looks.
Besides, there is thrust upon Tomlin the disagreeable necessity of
claiming his own, and that, too, in a gentlemanly tone and manner--for
it will not do to assume beforehand that Sopkin is going to refuse
restitution. Tomlin is not aware that he thinks all this, but he knows
that he feels it, and, in spite of himself, demands his property in a
tone and with a look that sets agoing the electrical current in Sopkin,
who replies, in a growling tone, "it is _my_ chair just now."

Ordinary men would remonstrate in a case of this kind, or explain, but
Tomlin is not ordinary. He is fiery. Seizing the back of his property,
he hitches it up, and, with a deft movement worthy of a juggler,
deposits the unreasonable Sopkin abruptly on the deck! Sopkin leaps up
with doubled fists. Tomlin stands on guard. Rumkin, a presumptuous
man, who thinks it his special mission in life to set everything wrong
right, rushes between them, and is told by both to "mind his own
business." The interruption, however, gives time to the captain to
interfere; he remarks in a mild tone, not unmixed with sarcasm, that
rough skylarking is not appropriate in the presence of ladies, and that
there is a convenient fo'c's'l to which the gentlemen may retire when
inclined for such amusement.

There is a something in the captain's look and manner which puts out the
fire of Tomlin's spirit, and reduces the sulky Sopkin to obedience,
besides overawing the presumptuous Rumkin, and from that day forth there
is among the passengers a better understanding of the authority of a sea
captain, and the nature of the unwritten laws that exist, more or less,
on ship-board.

We have referred to an incident of the quarter-deck, but the same laws
and influences prevailed in the forepart of the vessel, in which our
coxswain and his friend had embarked.

It was the evening of the fifth day out, and Massey, Joe Slag, the long
lugubrious man, whose name was Mitford, and his pretty little
lackadaisical wife, whose name was Peggy, were seated at one end of a
long mess-table having supper--a meal which included tea and bread and
butter, as well as salt junk, etcetera.

"You don't seem quite to have recovered your spirits yet, Mitford," said
Massey to the long comrade. "Have a bit o' pork? There's nothin' like
that for givin' heart to a man."

"Ay, 'specially arter a bout o' sea-sic