smoking awhile; then, when I could hold my eyes open no longer and was about to put out the light, the great clock began to boom, and I counted ten.  I reached for the Waterbury to see how it was getting along.  It was marking 9.30.  It seemed rather poor speed for a three-dollar watch, but I supposed that the climate was affecting it.  I shoved it half an hour ahead; and took to my book and waited to see what would happen.  At 10 the great clock struck ten again.  I looked—­the Waterbury was marking half-past 10.  This was too much speed for the money, and it troubled me.  I pushed the hands back a half hour, and waited once more; I had to, for I was vexed and restless now, and my sleepiness was gone.  By and by the great clock struck 11.  The Waterbury was marking 10.30.  I pushed it ahead half an hour, with some show of temper.  By and by the great clock struck 11 again.  The Waterbury showed up 11.30, now, and I beat her brains out against the bedstead.  I was sorry next day, when I found out.

To return to the ship.

The average human being is a perverse creature; and when he isn’t that, he is a practical joker.  The result to the other person concerned is about the same:  that is, he is made to suffer.  The washing down of the decks begins at a very early hour in all ships; in but few ships are any measures taken to protect the passengers, either by waking or warning them, or by sending a steward to close their ports.  And so the deckwashers have their opportunity, and they use it.  They send a bucket of water slashing along the side of the ship and into the ports, drenching the passenger’s clothes, and often the passenger himself.  This good old custom prevailed in this ship, and under unusually favorable circumstances, for in the blazing tropical regions a removable zinc thing like a sugarshovel projects from the port to catch the wind and bring it in; this thing catches the wash-water and brings it in, too—­and in flooding abundance.  Mrs. L, an invalid, had to sleep on the locker—­sofa under her port, and every time she over-slept and thus failed to take care of herself, the deck-washers drowned her out.

And the painters, what a good time they had!  This ship would be going into dock for a month in Sydney for repairs; but no matter, painting was going on all the time somewhere or other.  The ladies’ dresses were constantly getting ruined, nevertheless protests and supplications went for nothing.  Sometimes a lady, taking an afternoon nap on deck near a ventilator or some other thing that didn’t need painting, would wake up by and by and find that the humorous painter had been noiselessly daubing that thing and had splattered her white gown all over with little greasy yellow spots.

The blame for this untimely painting did not lie with the ship’s officers, but with custom.  As far back as Noah’s time it became law that ships must be constantly painted and fussed at when at sea; custom grew out of the law, and at sea custom knows no death; this custom will continue until the sea goes dry.