the seat remaining, and that immortal part the
captain finally kicked overboard--not maliciously, nor in an unfriendly
spirit, but because he had a habit of kicking the seats of trousers.

The storm increased in violence until it succeeded in so straining the
_Mudlark_ that she took in water like a teetotaler; then it appeared to
get relief directly. This may be said in justice to a storm at sea: when
it has broken off your masts, pulled out your rudder, carried away your
boats and made a nice hole in some inaccessible part of your hull it
will often go away in search of a fresh ship, leaving you to take such
measures for your comfort as you may think fit. In our case the captain
thought fit to sit on the taffrail reading a three-volume novel.

Seeing he had got about half way through the second volume, at which
point the lovers would naturally be involved in the most hopeless and
heart-rending difficulties, I thought he would be in a particularly
cheerful humor, so I approached him and informed him the ship was going
down.

"Well," said he, closing the book, but keeping his forefinger between
the pages to mark his place, "she never would be good for much after
such a shaking-up as this. But, I say--I wish you would just send the
bo'sn for'd there to break up that prayer-meeting. The _Mudlark_ isn't a
seamen's chapel, I suppose."

"But," I replied, impatiently, "can't something be done to lighten the
ship?"

"Well," he drawled, reflectively, "seeing she hasn't any masts left to
cut away, nor any cargo to--stay, you might throw over some of the
heaviest of the passengers if you think it would do any good."

It was a happy thought--the intuition of genius. Walking rapidly forward
to the foc'sle, which, being highest out of water, was crowded with
passengers, I seized a stout old gentleman by the nape of the neck,
pushed him up to the rail, and chucked him over. He did not touch the
water: he fell on the apex of a cone of sharks which sprang up from the
sea to meet him, their noses gathered to a point, their tails just
clearing the surface. I think it unlikely that the old gentleman knew
what disposition had been made of him. Next, I hurled over a woman and
flung a fat baby to the wild winds. The former was sharked out of sight,
the same as the old man; the latter divided amongst the gulls.

I am relating these things exactly as they occurred. It would be very
easy to make a fine story out of all this material--to