"Balaklava" were four times the size of
baby's misfortunes. So Picton got to be very nervous and uncharitable, and
slept on deck after the first night.

"How do you like this?" said Picton, as we leaned over the side of the
"Balaklava," looking down at the millions of gelatinous quarls in the
clear waters.

"Oh! very much; this lazy life will soon bring me up; how exhilarating the
air is--how fresh and free!

"'A life on the ocean wave,
A home on the rolling deep.'"

Just then the schooner gave a lurch and shook her feathers alow and aloft
by way of chorus. "I like this kind of life very much; how gracefully this
vessel moves; what a beautiful union of strength, proportion, lightness,
in the taper masts, the slender ropes and stays, the full spread and sweep
of her sails! Then how expansive the view, the calm ocean in its solitude,
the receding land, the twinkling lighthouse, the"----

"Ever been sea-sick?" said Picton, drily.

"Not often. By the way, my appetite is improving; I think Cookey is
getting tea ready, by the smoke and the smell."

"Likely," replied Picton; "let us take a squint at the galley."

To the galley we went, where we saw Cookey in great distress; for the wind
would blow in at the wrong end of his stove-pipe, so as to reverse the
draft, and his stove was smoking at every seam. Poor Cookey's eyes were
full of tears.

"Why don't you turn the elbow of the pipe the other way?" said Picton.

"Hi av tried that," said Cookey, "but the helbow is so 'eavy the 'ole
thing comes h'off."

"Then, take off the elbow," said Picton.

So Cookey did, and very soon tea was ready. Imagine a cabin, not much
larger than a good-sized omnibus, and far less steady in its motion,
choked up with trunks, and a table about the size of a wash-stand; imagine
two stools and a locker to sit on: a canvas table-cloth in full blotch;
three chipped yellow mugs by way of cups; as many plates, but of great
variety of gap, crack, and pattern; pewter spoons; a blacking-bottle of
milk; an earthen piggin of brown sugar, embroidered with a lively gang of
great, fat, black pismires; hard bread, old as Nineveh; and butter of a
most forbidding aspect. Imagine this array set before an invalid, with an
appetite of the most Miss Nancyish kind!

"One misses the comforts here at sea," said the captain's lady, a pretty
young woman, with a sweet Milesian accent.

"Yes, ma'am," said I, glancing again at the banquet.

"I don't r