But you really must not expect me to grimace and buffoon.  You must take me seriatim or not at all.  I can’t stand on my head to sketch.  I can’t do it.  I nearly did do it, though, for when I had my sketching-book in my hand on board, the spanker-boom, or some such thing, came over suddenly and hit me such a whack on the head, that for two minutes I lay insensible, and thought I should never become sensible again.  Rightly is it called “spanker-boom,”—­that is if it is called so, or some name very like it,—­for I never got such a whack on the head in all my life before.  I hear the Booming still in my ears.

You can’t expect a fellow to be funny, however funny he may feel (and I did feel uncommonly funny, you may take your oath!), under such circumstances.  However, as the song says, “Home once more,” and many a yarn shall I have to tell when I gather myself round the fireside, pipe all hands for grog, and sing you an old Norse song with real humour in it—­though I dare say you’ll say you don’t see it—­and so no more a present from yours seasickly (I am quite well, but I mean I’m sick of the sea),

FLOTSAM, Y.A.

* * * * *

JOURNAL OF A ROLLING STONE.

FIFTH ENTRY.

Curious thing that to-day—­after disappointment of failure for the Bar—­letter comes from President of my old College, asking me “if I would accept a nice Tutorship for a time?” If so, “I had better come down and talk to him about it.”

Decided a little time ago not to try “Scholastic Profession”—­thought it would try me too much.  Feel tempted now. Query—­am I losing my old pluck?  In consequence of my new “pluck,”—­in the Bar Exam?

“Um!” remarks the President (I have run down and got a vacant bed-room in College).  “Glad to see you.  Oh, yes, about that tutorship.  Um, um!  The family live in Somerset.”  He mentions the county apologetically, as if he expected me to reply—­“Oh, Somerset!  Couldn’t dream of going there.  Not very particular, but must have a place within ten miles of Charing Cross.”  As I don’t object to Somerset, at least audibly, he goes on more cheerfully—­

“Boy doesn’t want to be taught much, so perhaps, it would suit you.”—­(Query—­is this insulting?)—­“He wants a companion more—­somebody to keep him steady, have a good influence and all that, and give him a little classics and so on for about an hour a day.”

It did not sound as bad as I expected.

“Rich people—­um—­merchants at Bristol, I think.  Not very cultivated, though.”  Here President pauses again, and looks as if he would not be at all astonished if I rose from my chair, put on my hat, and said, “Not very cultivated!  That won’t suit me!  You see how tremendously cultivated I am.”  But I don’t, and he proceeds calmly to another head of his discourse.