6 Travels and Adventures 



into large foam-crested rolling billows and making our 

 little Phantom swing and dance in a way that would 

 put a switchback railway in the shade. One side of 

 the ship would suddenly dive down until the top of 

 her deck touched the water, while the other side was 

 high in the air at an elevation of thirty feet, and this, 

 in turn, would descend with a splash and a roar; at the 

 same time several tons of salt water would sweep 

 across her upper decks, and as quickly, with the change 

 of position, blow over the side, this continual vibration 

 being kept up for a period of not less than four days and 

 four nights, sufficient to convince nervous people not 

 accustomed to seafaring peculiarities that the owners 

 of the Phantom had secretly entered into a contract 

 with the society for the development of the theory of 

 perpetual motion. This unwarrantable infringement 

 of the commonest laws of equilibrium materially af- 

 fected the comfortable enjoyment of a bill of fare 

 which, although really good for the situation, was not 

 absolutely free from that inevitable repetition of cer- 

 tain dishes to commemorate clays of the week. For 

 instance, pea-soup Wednesdays and Fridays, plum- 

 dough Sundays and Thursdays, a regularity strangely 

 peculiar to gaols, workhouses, and barracks, and a 

 system by which sailors mark the days of the week 

 without the assistance of Whitaker. 



1 he table was provided with two long laths, which. 



