These conversations, however, were mere episodes of the great business of the passage. Throughout the morning, the master was busy in rating his mates, giving sharp reprimands to the stewards and cooks, overhauling the log line, introducing the passengers, seeing to the stowage of the anchors, in getting down the signal-pole, throwing in touches of Vattel, and otherwise superintending duty, and dispensing opinions. All this time, the cat in the grass does not watch the bird that hops along the ground with keener vigilance than he kept his eye on the Foam. To an ordinary observer, the two ships presented the familiar spectacle of vessels sailing in the same direction, with a very equal rate of speed; and as the course was that necessary to clear the Channel, most of the passengers, and, indeed, the greater part of the crew, began to think the cruiser, like themselves, was merely bound to the westward. Mr. Truck, on the contrary, judging by signs and movements that more naturally suggested themselves to one accustomed to direct the evolutions of a ship, and to reason on their objects, than to the mere subjects of his will, thought differently. To him, the motive of the smallest change on board the sloop-of-war was as intelligible as if it had been explained in words, and he even foresaw many that were about to take place. Before noon, the Foam had got fairly abeam, and Mr. Leach, pointing out the circumstance, observed, that if her wish was to overhaul them, she ought then to tack; it being a rule among seamen, that the pursuing vessel should turn to windward as often as she found herself nearest to her chase. But the experience of Captain Truck taught him better; the tide was setting into the Channel on the flood, and the wind enabled both ships to fake the current on their lee-bows, a power that forced them up to windward; whereas, by tacking, the Foam would receive the force of the stream on her weather broadside, or so nearly so, as to sweep her farther astern than her difference in speed could easily repair. "She has the heels of us, and she weathers on us, as it, is," grumbled the master; "and that might satisfy a man less modest. I have led the gentleman such a tramp already that he will be in none of the best humours when he comes alongside, and we may make up our minds on seeing Portsmouth again before we see New-York, unless a slant of wind, or the night, serve us a good turn. I trust, Leach, you have not been destroying your prospects in life by looking too wistfully at a tobacco-field?" "Not I, sir; and if you will give me leave to say it, Captain Truck, I do not think a plug has been landed from the ship, which did not go ashore in a _bona-fide_ tobacco-box, that might appear in any court in England. The people will swear, to a man, that this is true."