the breakfast bell.

Here octopi, here great white whales,
Here krakens haunt the Main;
Mad mermaids sing--my courage fails--
Here comes Harriet Lane.[1]

There, far far down, what jewels lie,
What corals, red enough
To make this sauce[2] seem pale, which I
Am wolfing with my duff!

To think that one lone ship should thus
Ride o'er the greedy seas!
Alas! what will become of us
Now we've run out of cheese?[3]

The northern spring came into the air. Scraps of the casual verse of one
English poet who never tired of the year afield started up in memory
now, where the pondered solemn music of others had no reverberation; and
so for the rest of my voyage. The sea for a time grew intensely calm, the
swell seeming to swim along under a mantle of pearl or quicksilver. The
undulating surface stretched to the horizon, unbroken anywhere by restless
foam; and over this calm lay the golden track to the setting sun. When
presently a breeze ruffled this strange sleep, it was as though shoals
of tiny fishes had everywhere risen to the surface; and in one or two
places, those bubbling, flickering shoals were actual and not imaginary.

As if schooled by misfortune, Sparks now posted up in the port alleyway a
statement of football results and tables; so that many bosoms aboard
needed no longer to feel a heaving anxiety. A turtle lazily floated by,
watched by many who could have welcomed him on deck; a whale passed,
shouldering and spouting the brine; and shortly, as the midnight moon
had portended, the dark green sea began to run in hilly ridges, sometimes
sluicing the decks, and tilting the _Bonadventure_ to one side or the
other. Grey rain-squalls flew over us now and then; but, considering our
near approach to the redoubtable Bay, we were in excellent weather. The
mate, however, was not one to take chances; and certain barrels, an anvil
and a few other heavy movables were shifted from the windward side of the
engines.

The steward and his adjutant had now little time certain in which to
reform my room, so they fell upon it with paint brushes and "flat white"
in vigorous style; it had been my hope to be allowed this labour, but I
remembered my "Tom Sawyer," where painting as a recreation was so truly
valued. Mouldytop was seldom seen in these days without his pot and
brush; he went at it from dawn to midnight and then did overtime. My
room was turned into a whited sepu