at calm and a heavy swell, and
had we not hastily rigged rolling tackles I verily believe that she
would have rolled the masts out of her. Even the skipper, proud as he
was of her, felt obliged to make some sort of apology for her, which he
wound up by saying: "But some day a smarty'll come along and invent some
way of turnin' this here rollin' to account as a means of propulsion,
and then you'll see that builders'll fashion all ships upon the model of
the _Marthy_."

"Eh? What's that? Just say that again, Captain," remarked Cunningham,
who, it being the second dog-watch, happened to be on deck.

The skipper said it again.

"Y-e-es," agreed Cunningham, thoughtfully, "y-e-es, I shouldn't wonder;"
and he walked away contemplatively.

"Now I wouldn't be so very powerful surprised if he was to turn out to
be the smarty that I just mentioned," observed the skipper, jerking his
thumb toward where Cunningham stood gazing abstractedly over the
taffrail, with his feet wide apart and his hands locked behind him,
balancing himself to the violent movements of the little vessel.

"Possibly," I agreed. "Cunningham is of a very inventive turn of mind.
But to convert the rolling motion of a ship into a forward movement is a
pretty tall order, and would probably require exceedingly complicated
machinery. The idea is by no means new, and I believe several inventors
have had a turn at it; but nothing practical seems to have come of it as
yet."

Nothing further was said upon the subject just then; but, the calm
continuing all night and all the next day, I several times caught
Cunningham with paper before him and a pencil in his hand, sketching and
calculating. And when the next day also proved calm, and our
observations showed that we had not progressed a couple of miles upon
our journey, the skipper again addressed Cunningham upon the subject,
asking him half-jestingly if he had not yet been able to devise some
scheme to turn the eternal rolling to account.

"Oh yes!" answered Cunningham; "I dare say I could rig up some sort of
an arrangement, if it were worth while. But it would be rather a
cumbersome contrivance to ship and unship, and I would not recommend it
unless there is likely to be much of this sort of thing between here and
our destination."

"Well," said the skipper, "I reckon we may depend pretty certainly upon
at least a fortnight of ca'ms afore we arrive at that there oyster bed;
and it'd be worth a whole lo