it into your head that I would start to tack a steamer as if she were a
sailing-ship?"

"Jolly good thing she isn't," threw in Jukes, with bitter readiness.
"She would have rolled every blessed stick out of her this afternoon."

"Aye! And you just would have had to stand and see them go," said
Captain MacWhirr, showing a certain animation. "It's a dead calm, isn't
it?"

"It is, sir. But there's something out of the common coming, for sure."

"Maybe. I suppose you have a notion I should be getting out of the
way of that dirt," said Captain MacWhirr, speaking with the utmost
simplicity of manner and tone, and fixing the oilcloth on the floor
with a heavy stare. Thus he noticed neither Jukes' discomfiture nor the
mixture of vexation and astonished respect on his face.

"Now, here's this book," he continued with deliberation, slapping his
thigh with the closed volume. "I've been reading the chapter on the
storms there."

This was true. He had been reading the chapter on the storms. When he
had entered the chart-room, it was with no intention of taking the book
down. Some influence in the air--the same influence, probably, that
caused the steward to bring without orders the Captain's sea-boots and
oilskin coat up to the chart-room--had as it were guided his hand to
the shelf; and without taking the time to sit down he had waded with a
conscious effort into the terminology of the subject. He lost himself
amongst advancing semi-circles, left- and right-hand quadrants, the