er a curious man to look at. He was so very neat
and so very clean-shaved, and he always wore an eye-glass in his right
eye. It seemed to grow there, for it had no string, and he never took
it out except to wipe it. At first I thought he used to sleep in it,
but afterwards I found that this was a mistake. He put it in his
trousers pocket when he went to bed, together with his false teeth, of
which he had two beautiful sets that, my own being none of the best,
have often caused me to break the tenth commandment. But I am
anticipating.

Soon after we had got under way evening closed in, and brought with it
very dirty weather. A keen breeze sprung up off land, and a kind of
aggravated Scotch mist soon drove everybody from the deck. As for the
_Dunkeld_, she is a flat-bottomed punt, and going up light as she was,
she rolled very heavily. It almost seemed as though she would go right
over, but she never did. It was quite impossible to walk about, so I
stood near the engines where it was warm, and amused myself with
watching the pendulum, which was fixed opposite to me, swinging slowly
backwards and forwards as the vessel rolled, and marking the angle she
touched at each lurch.

"That pendulum's wrong; it is not properly weighted," suddenly said a
somewhat testy voice at my shoulder. Looking round I saw the naval
officer whom I had noticed when the passengers came aboard.

"Indeed, now what makes you think so?" I asked.

"Think so. I don't think at all. Why there"--as she righted herself
after a roll--"if the ship had really rolled to the degree that thing
pointed to, then she would never have rolled again, that's all. But it
is just like these merchant skippers, they are always so confoundedly
careless."

Just then the dinner-bell rang, and I was not sorry, for it is a
dreadful thing to have to listen to an officer of the Royal Navy when
he gets on to that subject. I only know one worse thing, and that is to
hear a merchant skipper express his candid opinion of officers of the
Royal Navy.

Captain Good and I went down to dinner together, and there we found Sir
Henry Curtis already seated. He and Captain Good were placed together,
and I sat opposite to them. The captain and I soon fell into talk about
shooting and what not; he asking me many questions, for he is very
inquisitive about all sorts of things, and I answering them as well as
I could. Presently he got on to elephants.

"Ah, sir," called out somebody who wa