s hand whenever
the child called "Good-morning!" to me cordially. I fancied him
ashamed of his foolish falsehood; and I, on my side, was angry because
of it. The pair were for ever strolling backwards and forwards on
deck, or resting beneath the awning on the poop, and talking--always
talking. I fancied the boy was delicate; he certainly had a bad cough
during the first few days. But this went away as our voyage proceeded,
and his colour was rich and rosy.

One afternoon I caught a fragment of their talk as they passed, Johnny
brightly dressed and smiling, his father looking even more shabby and
weary than usual. The man was speaking.

"And Queen Victoria rides once a year through the streets of London on
her milk-white courser, to hear the nightingales sing in the Tower.
For when she came to the throne the Tower was full of prisoners, but
with a stroke of her sceptre she changed them all into song-birds.
Every year she releases fifty; and that is why they sing so
rapturously, because each one hopes his turn has come at last."

I turned away. It was unconscionable to cram the child's mind
with these preposterous fables. I pictured the poor little chap's
disappointment when the bleak reality came to stare him in the face.
To my mind, his father was worse than an idiot, and I could hardly
bring myself to greet him next morning, when we met.

My disgust did not seem to trouble him. In a timid way, even, his eyes
expressed satisfaction. For a week or two I let him alone, and then
was forced to speak.

It happened in this way. We had spun merrily along the tail of the
S.E. trades and glided slowly to a standstill on a glassy ocean, and
beneath a sun that at noon left us shadowless. A fluke or two of wind
had helped us across the line; but now, in 2 deg. 27' north latitude, the
_Midas_ slept like a turtle on the greasy sea. The heat of the near
African coast seemed to beat like steam against our faces. The pitch
bubbled like caviare in the seams of the white deck, and the shrouds
and ratlines ran with tears of tar. To touch the brass rail of the
poop was to blister the hand, to catch a whiff from the cook's galley
was to feel sick for ten minutes. The hens in their coops lay with
eyes glazed and gasped for air. If you hung forward over the bulwarks
you stared down into your own face. The sailors grumbled and cursed
and panted as they huddled forward under a second awning that was
rigged up to give them shade rather than