“Ye ha’ slupped them off in gude airnest yeersel, sir,” rejoined Captain McGuffin, unable, however, to repress a smile, in which all joined, at the idea of Grundy’s extreme simplicity. “Dinna ye ken, sir, that it’s the ship, and not the swing-table, that loses its pairpendicular? Here, steward,” continued he, “clare away these frogments, and put mair glasses on the table.” The colloquy ended, there was a further lull, when, heave yo ho! away went the ship on the other side; purser jammed up against the bulk-head—rolls—legs and wings—boiled beef, carrots, and potatoes, all racing, as if to see which would first reach the other side of the table. At this instant snap went a chair-lashing, and the ex-resident of Paugulabad was whirled out of the cuddy door, like a thunder-bolt. “There she goes again!” exclaimed the second mate; “hold on, gentlemen.” The caution was well-timed, for down she went on the opposite tack; once more, the recoil brought the colonel back again, with the force of a battering-ram, attended by an awful smash of the butlers plate-basket, and other deafening symptoms of reaction. Oh, ’tis brave sport, a cuddy-dinner in an Indiaman, and your ship rolling gunwales under. “By the powers, now, but this hates everything entirely,” exclaimed Ensign Gorman, who, like myself, was a griff, and had never witnessed anything of the sort before. “Oh, its nothing at all this—mere child’s play, to what you’ll have round the Cape,” observed the second mate, grinning with malice prepense. “The deuce take you, now, Grinnerson, for a _Jove’s_ comforter,” rejoined the ensign, laughing; “sure if it’s worse than this, it is we’ll be sailing bottom upwards, and ateing our males with our heels in the air.” “Oh, I assure you, it’s a mere trifle this to the rolling and pitching I myself have experienced,” said the little colonel, who having recovered his seat and composure, now put in his oar, unwilling to be silent when anything wonderful was on the _tapis_. “I remember,” continued the ex-resident, picking his teeth _nonchalamment_ (he generally picked his teeth when delivered of a bouncer), “that was—let me see, about the year 1810—shortly after I resigned the residency of Paugulabad—we were off Cape Lagullas, when our vessel rolled incessantly for a fortnight in the heaviest sea I ever remember to have seen; we were half our time under water—a shark actually swam through the cuddy—everything went by the board—live stock all washed away—couldn’t cook the whole time, but lived on biscuit, Bologna sausages, Bombay ducks, and so forth. To give you an idea of it—ladies will excuse me—I actually wore out the seats of two pair of inexpressibles from the constant friction to which they were subjected—a sort of perpetual motion—no preserving the same centre of gravity for a single moment.” This sally of the colonel’s had an equally disturbing effect on the gravity of the cuddy party, and all laughed heartily at it.