but of that dingy russet grey towards which old mushrooms grow.
They seemed never to clap their wings, but sailed as our gulls do on the
wind, wheeling and looping with a leisurely grace, and patrolling the sea
as closely as an owl beats a meadow without wetting a wing-tip.

Nor was this the only token of our nearing our first destination.
Shore-going suits and boots were out in the sun already. The steward's
usual attitude became that of a priest, as he carried the captain's
suits gingerly here and there.

But there was still time for trouble. A relapse in the sainted manner
of the old fellow occurred one day at breakfast. The most tremendous
roarings, himself and the offending donkeyman in turn or in chorus,
suddenly broke out, and ended in the steward's ascent with a complaint to
Hosea. Then, one evening, after my quiet enjoyment of the pure blue
sky after a shower, with its Southern Cross and the false cross and other
stars strange to me glittering marvellously keen, I went in to my cabin to
write, when I instantly perceived something in the air. A most pungent
aroma, indeed, had been instilled through the house; and going to inquire
I found Cyrano of Cardiff kneeling on the saloon floor, applying a
special kind of red paint. Properly, he said, it was used for the keels
of ships. I thought too that that was its proper application.

At dinner, too, events took a serious turn. When I had in previous
days heard spaghetti hailed as Wind-pipes, for instance, I had realized
the phrase as a humorous hyperbole. But now the tinned meat problem
presented itself to me in a more sinister light--I was not so sure!
There before me was a godless lump of briny red fat and stringy appendages
floating more or less in a thick brown liquid which demanded the
spectacles of optimism. A reinforcement of stony beans did not mend the
matter. The meat, as it fell out, wore a portion of skin, remarkable
for prickly excrescences, and hinting that I was about to batten on
the relics of a young porcupine, or at least peculiar pork. Presently
I asked Meacock what sort of flesh this was. He answered: "O Lord, _I_
don't know--it's--well, I don't think you can get beyond tinned _meat_."

Another incident affected the administration. An apprentice, whose stature
brought him, beyond the chance of escape, the nickname Little Tich, and
who was generally being bantered by someone or other, was cleaning the
brasswork of the compass in the wheel-house.