d most of the crockery-
ware and glasses in the steward's pantry, besides causing the benches
round the saloon table and the chairs to fetch away from their lashings.

For days past, our meals had resembled amateur picnics more than
anything else--whenever we were able to get them, that is, the old
regularity of breakfast and lunch and dinner being completely abolished;
for the captain and Mr Marline and myself had to take odd snacks and
stray bites at various hours whenever opportunity and appetite allowed
their indulgence.

Harry, the steward, was at his wit's end to get things in proper
keeping.

No sooner had he cleared up one batch of breakages and made matters
ship-shape than over would sway the _Josephine_ hard to port; when, bang
would go something else, undoing in one instant the work of hours of
labour in putting the place below in order.

"Lor' a mussy, me nebber get tings right nohow!" he would exclaim,
setting to work again; and then, a sea would come floating in over the
combings of the cabin bulkhead, tumbling him over and washing him aft
amidst the debris, almost drowning the man before he could fish himself
up again and set to his task anew. His toil, like that of Sisyphus, was
ever being renewed when on the verge of completion.

To me, however, all these little disagreeables seemed immensely jolly;
so, whenever the captain or Mr Marline or Harry happened to get
capsized in this way down in the cabin during the day, it sent me at
once into fits of merriment, the fact of my being washed off my feet as
well only adding to the enjoyment of the joke, for I could grin quite as
much with my own head in the scuppers and my mouth full of water as I
would when the others were similarly situated.

"Bless the boy!" Captain Miles said. "He's a regular sailor. He
laughs at everything."

And so I did; especially one afternoon, when a sea coming in suddenly so
jammed Mr Marline inside an arm-chair, whose seat had given way, that
the watch had to be called below to extricate him. The mate took the
matter with great good-humour, I may add, only saying to me, "Ah, never
mind, Master Tom, we'll see who'll laugh best bye and bye."

Jake used to sneak down on the sly to put my bunk in order so that I
might be more comfortable, having, like most pure negroes, a thorough
contempt for the mulatto steward. He believed him quite incapable of
looking after me properly.

"Him only poor trash, Mass' Tom," he would