The
instant I put out the lamp and drowse off the irritation starts and
the lumps on my skin begin to form.
Miss West may be sea-sick, but she cannot be comatose, because at
frequent intervals she sends the steward to me with more cream of
tartar.
I have had a revelation to-day. I have discovered Captain West. He
is a Samurai.--You remember the Samurai that H. G. Wells describes in
his Modern Utopia--the superior breed of men who know things and are
masters of life and of their fellow-men in a super-benevolent, super-
wise way? Well, that is what Captain West is. Let me tell it to
you.
We had a shift of wind to-day. In the height of a south-west gale
the wind shifted, in the instant, eight points, which is equivalent
to a quarter of the circle. Imagine it! Imagine a gale howling from
out of the south-west. And then imagine the wind, in a heavier and
more violent gale, abruptly smiting you from the north-west. We had
been sailing through a circular storm, Captain West vouchsafed to me,
before the event, and the wind could be expected to box the compass.
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