cobwebs that have not been blown away by breakfast-time.

Rennick is busy breakfasting preparatory to relieving Campbell on the
bridge. Meanwhile, the hourly and four-hourly ship's log is being made
up--force of the wind, state of the sea, height of the barometer, and all
the details which a log has to carry--including a reading of the distance
run as shown by the patent log line--(many is the time I have forgotten
to take it just at the hour and have put down what I thought it ought to
be, and not what it was).

The morning watch is finished.

Suddenly there is a yell from somewhere amidships--"STEADY"--a stranger
might have thought there was something wrong, but it is a familiar sound,
answered by a "STEADY IT IS, Sir," from the man at the wheel, and an
anything but respectful, "One--two--three--STEADY," from everybody having
breakfast. It is Pennell who has caused this uproar. And the origin is as
follows:

Pennell is the navigator, and the standard compass, owing to its
remoteness from iron in this position, is placed on the top of the
ice-house. The steersman, however, steers by a binnacle compass placed
aft in front of his wheel. But these two compasses for various reasons do
not read alike at a given moment, while the standard is the truer of the
two.

At intervals, then, Pennell or the officer of the watch orders the
steersman to "Stand by for a steady," and goes up to the standard
compass, and watches the needle. Suppose the course laid down is S. 40 E.
A liner would steer almost true to this course unless there was a big