I loitered about awhile, and then, for want of something better to do, fell to carving a railing with my knife.  Somebody said, in an insinuating, admonitory voice: 

“Now, say—­my friend—­don’t you know any better than to be whittling the ship all to pieces that way?  You ought to know better than that.”

I went back and found the deck sweep.

“Who is that smooth-faced, animated outrage yonder in the fine clothes?”

“That’s Captain L****, the owner of the ship—­he’s one of the main bosses.”

In the course of time I brought up on the starboard side of the pilot-house and found a sextant lying on a bench.  Now, I said, they “take the sun” through this thing; I should think I might see that vessel through it.  I had hardly got it to my eye when someone touched me on the shoulder and said deprecatingly: 

“I’ll have to get you to give that to me, Sir.  If there’s anything you’d like to know about taking the sun, I’d as soon tell you as not—­but I don’t like to trust anybody with that instrument.  If you want any figuring done—­Aye, aye, sir!”

He was gone to answer a call from the other side.  I sought the deck-sweep.

“Who is that spider-legged gorilla yonder with the sanctimonious countenance?”

“It’s Captain Jones, sir—­the chief mate.”

“Well.  This goes clear away ahead of anything I ever heard of before.  Do you—­now I ask you as a man and a brother—­do you think I could venture to throw a rock here in any given direction without hitting a captain of this ship?”

“Well, sir, I don’t know—­I think likely you’d fetch the captain of the watch may be, because he’s a-standing right yonder in the way.”

I went below—­meditating and a little downhearted.  I thought, if five cooks can spoil a broth, what may not five captains do with a pleasure excursion.

CHAPTER IV.

We plowed along bravely for a week or more, and without any conflict of jurisdiction among the captains worth mentioning.  The passengers soon learned to accommodate themselves to their new circumstances, and life in the ship became nearly as systematically monotonous as the routine of a barrack.  I do not mean that it was dull, for it was not entirely so by any means—­but there was a good deal of sameness about it.  As is always the fashion at sea, the passengers shortly began to pick up sailor terms —­a sign that they were beginning to feel at home.  Half-past six was no longer half-past six to these pilgrims from New England, the South, and the Mississippi Valley, it was “seven bells”; eight, twelve, and four o’clock were “eight bells”; the captain did not take the longitude at nine o’clock, but at “two bells.”  They spoke glibly of the “after cabin,” the “for’rard cabin,” “port and starboard” and the “fo’castle.”