The ship was rolling from side to side like a porpoise, and the wind nearly blew the hair off my head, my cap having gone away to leeward the first step I took up the ladderway on emerging from the cabin after breakfast.
"Well, Master Tom!" the captain shouted in my ear, the noise being so great that it almost required a speaking trumpet to make anyone hear at a great distance--"how do you like this weather, eh ?" "A jolly sight better than the calm," I said joyously.

The wind seemed to get in my head and make me excited in a similar way as it is supposed to affect cats; for I felt inclined to sing with glee as I braced myself up against the blast and clung to the binnacle rail, surveying the wild scene around in a perfect frenzy of delight.

Sea and sky were mingled together; and the ship presented a grand spectacle as she nobly struggled against and overcame the combined strength of the elements trying to vanquish her efforts at escape! "A good breeze is certainly better than a calm, Tom," observed Mr Marline in response to my jubilant remark; "but, it all depends what sort of a wind it is, for, if it blows your vessel the wrong way, the question arises whether the former state of things be not preferable." "Belay that sea-lawyering, Marline," interposed Captain Miles.

"I never saw such a fellow for taking a gloomy view of everything! Here we were rolling about in a calm for days upon days as if they would never end, while now we are bowling away before a brisk south-easter; and yet you are not happy!" "But in what direction are we going, eh, captain ?" slyly inquired Mr Marline.
"A point or two off our course, I admit," replied the other; "but still we are going, and that is the great thing.

We are not lying still like a log on the ocean." "How far have we run, sir, do you think, since last night ?" I asked Captain Miles when Mr Marline made no further attempt at conversation.
"I shall take a sight of the sun presently, my boy," he answered, with one of his odd winks, giving a quizzical glance at Mr Marline, as if telling me he thought he had shut him up for the time; "then I shall be better able to tell you.