To begin with, the coal pile is altogether too large and my back is altogether too refined.  There should be individual coal piles provided for temperamental sailors.  Small, colorful, appetizingly shaped mounds of nice, clean, glistening chunks of coal they should be, and the coal itself could easily be made much lighter, approaching if possible the weight of feathers.  This would be a task any reasonably inclined sailor would attack with relish, particularly if his efforts were attended by the strains of some good, snappy jazz.  However, reality wears a graver face and a sootier one.  Long did I labor and valiantly but to little effect.  More coal fell off of my shovel than remained on it.  This was due to the unfortunate fact that coal dust seems to affect me most unpleasantly, much in the same manner as daisies or golden rod affect hay fever sufferers.  The result was that every time I had my shovel poised in readiness to hurl its burden into space a monolithic sneeze overpowered me, shook me to the keel, and all the coal that I had trapped with so much patience and cunning fell miserably around my feet, from whence it had lately risen.  Little things like this become most discouraging when strung out for a great period of time.  In this manner I sneezed and sweated throughout the course of a sweltering afternoon, and just as I was about to call it a day along comes an evilly inclined coal wagon and dumps practically in my lap one hundred times more coal than I had disturbed in the entire course of my labors.  On top of this Fogerty, who had been loafing around all day with his tongue out disporting himself on the coal pile like a dog in the first snow, started a landslide somewhere above and came bearing down on me in a cloud of dust.  I found myself buried beneath the delighted Fogerty and a couple of tons of coal, from which I emerged unbeamingly, but not before Mr. Fogerty had addressed his tongue to my blackened face as an expression of high good humor.

[Illustration:  “FOGERTY CAME BEARING DOWN ON ME IN A CLOUD OF DUST”]

“Take me to the brig,” I said, walking over to the P.O., “I’m through.  You can put a service flag on that coal pile for me.”

“What’s consuming you, buddy?” asked the P.O. in not an unkindly voice.

“Take me to the brig,” I repeated, “it’s too much.  Here I’ve been working diligently all day to reduce the size of this huge mass, when up comes that old wagon and humps its back and belches forth its horrid contents all over the place.  It’s ridiculous.  I surrender my shovel.”

“Gord,” breathed the P.O., looking at me pityingly, “we don’t want to go and reduce that coal pile, we want to enlarge it.”

“Oh!” I replied, stunned, “I didn’t quite understand.  I thought you wanted to make it smaller, so I’ve been trying to shovel it away all afternoon.”

“You shouldn’t oughter have done that,” replied the P.O. as if he were talking to an idiot, “I suppose you’ve been shoveling her down hill all day?”