at Buenos Aires. The obese laundress,
Mme. Maria Maggi, was perhaps conspicuous among these (on another page
a report was printed that she had died, leaving L300,000 to her lean
charioteer). The watchman, with a label giving one of his typical
blasphemies, "Got-a-d---- b----" this, that, and the other, was seen at
full length. The altercation between the manager of the wharf (attached
to a balloon lettered YOU.ARE.USING.MY.BUCKETS. I.AM.THE.BANDOLIERO) and
Meacock, smoking as always and nevertheless replying YOU.BIG.STIFF _ore
rotundo_, was chronicled. And considering who the artist was, and his
recent poem, it was not surprising to find a malevolent caricature of one
still with us.

One afternoon, sleeping within my cabin, I heard the mate altering the
ship's course with "Hard a starboard" and so on, and feeling this to be
out of the ordinary I went out to see why. A mile off there was something
in the sea, which the apprentices declared to be a small boat with a
flag flying. I felt the light of adventure breaking in upon the murky
tramp. But as we drew nearer, the castaway proved to be nothing more
than a buoy, and visions of picking up a modern Crusoe faded suddenly. The
ship was put back to her course.

The breeze ahead grew stronger, and in the early morning, the sky being
quite grey, a slate-grey sea was running in sizable crests and valleys
and tossing the spray high aboard. "The devil's in the wind already."
"And the bread." The cook's reputation was gone at a blow. He, like a
wicket-keeper, did well without any notice taken; lapsed a moment, and
every one was barking. It seemed he had been unfortunate in the yeast
supplied him. There were sallies of wit: "Now's the time to pave the
alley," "Pass the holystone," over this doughy circumstance. For some
time, in the words of the Cambridge prize poet, the bread "was not
better, he was much the same," and ship's biscuits became unexpectedly
favourite. They were stiff but excellent eating; would have rejoiced
the soul of my late general, the noted "Admiral" H., alias "Monty,"
alias "The Schoolmaster," and other aliases. Can he ever be forgotten for
those diurnal and immortal questions of his, "Did your men have porridge
this morning?" and "Why did you not order your cook to give your men
duff to-day?" It wanted little imagination to picture him under his gold
oak leaves nibbling with dignity at a ship's biscuit and saying, "Very
good, Harrison, uncommonly tasty--I s