For instance, Tomlin is a fiery but provident man, and has provided himself with a deck-chair--a most important element of comfort on a long voyage. Sopkin is a big sulky and heedless man, and has provided himself with no such luxury. A few days after leaving port Sopkin finds Tomlin's chair on deck, empty, and, being ignorant of social customs at sea, seats himself thereon. Tomlin, coming on deck, observes the fact, and experiences sudden impulses in his fiery spirit. The electricity is at work. If it were allowable to venture on mental analysis, we might say that Tomlin's sense of justice is violated. It is not fair that he should be expected to spend money in providing comforts for any man, much less for a man who carelessly neglects to provide them for himself. His sense of propriety is shocked, for Sopkin has taken possession without asking leave. His self-esteem is hurt, for, although Sopkin knows it is his chair, he sits there doggedly, "like a big brute as he is," and does not seem to care what Tomlin thinks or how he looks. Besides, there is thrust upon Tomlin the disagreeable necessity of claiming his own, and that, too, in a gentlemanly tone and manner--for it will not do to assume beforehand that Sopkin is going to refuse restitution. Tomlin is not aware that he thinks all this, but he knows that he feels it, and, in spite of himself, demands his property in a tone and with a look that sets agoing the electrical current in Sopkin, who replies, in a growling tone, "it is _my_ chair just now." Ordinary men would remonstrate in a case of this kind, or explain, but Tomlin is not ordinary. He is fiery. Seizing the back of his property, he hitches it up, and, with a deft movement worthy of a juggler, deposits the unreasonable Sopkin abruptly on the deck! Sopkin leaps up with doubled fists. Tomlin stands on guard. Rumkin, a presumptuous man, who thinks it his special mission in life to set everything wrong right, rushes between them, and is told by both to "mind his own business." The interruption, however, gives time to the captain to interfere; he remarks in a mild tone, not unmixed with sarcasm, that rough skylarking is not appropriate in the presence of ladies, and that there is a convenient fo'c's'l to which the gentlemen may retire when inclined for such amusement. There is a something in the captain's look and manner which puts out the fire of Tomlin's spirit, and reduces the sulky Sopkin to obedience, besides overawing the presumptuous Rumkin, and from that day forth there is among the passengers a better understanding of the authority of a sea captain, and the nature of the unwritten laws that exist, more or less, on ship-board. We have referred to an incident of the quarter-deck, but the same laws and influences prevailed in the forepart of the vessel, in which our coxswain and his friend had embarked.