mate. For a deckhand we had a young East
London parson, whom we always knew as "the Puffin," because he so
closely resembled that particular bird when he had his vestments on.
We sailed first for Ireland, but the wind coming ahead we ran instead
for the Isle of Man. The first night at sea the very tall
undergraduate as second mate had the 12 P.M. to 4 A.M. night watch.
The tiller handle was very low, and when I gave him his course at
midnight before turning in myself, he asked me if it would be a breach
of nautical etiquette to sit down to steer, as that was the only
alternative to directing the ship's course with his ankles. No land
was in sight, and the wind had died out when I came on deck for my 4
A.M. to 8 A.M. watch. I found the second mate sitting up rubbing his
eyes as I emerged from the companion hatch.

"Well, where are we now? How is her head? What's my course?"

"Don't worry about such commonplace details," he replied. "I have made
an original discovery about these parts that I have never seen
mentioned before."

"What's that?" I asked innocently.

"Well," he replied, "when I sat down to steer the course you gave
brought a bright star right over the topmast head and that's what I
started to steer by. It's a perfect marvel what a game these heavenly
bodies play. We must be in some place like Alice in Wonderland. I just
shut my eyes for a second and when next I opened them the sun was
exactly where I had left that star--" and he fled for shelter.

It is a wonder that we ever got anywhere, for we had not so much as a
chronometer watch, and so in spite of a decrepit sextant even our
latitude was often an uncertain quantity. However, we made the port of
Douglas, whence we visited quite a part of the historic island. As our
parson was called home from there, we wired for and secured another
chum to share our labours. Our generally unconventional attire in
fashionable summer resorts was at times quite embarrassing.
Barelegged, bareheaded, and "tanned to a chip," I was carrying my
friend's bag along the fashionable pier to see him off on his homeward
journey, when a lady stopped me and asked me if I were an Eskimo,
offering me a job if I needed one. I have wondered sometimes if it
were a seat in a sideshow which she had designed for me.

We spent that holiday cruising around the island. It included getting
ashore off the north point of land and nearly losing the craft; and
also in Ramsey Harbour a fracas wit