Whether the relapse came from the kelpy scent of the shop and neighborhood, or from the sight of the suit of clothes relict of the mariner, or from the mental and stomachic association of both with scenes I had just passed through on the lake, I cannot of course, at this distance of time, presume to determine. I recollect, however, I had a droll, boyish impression, for a long while afterward, in connection with those second-hand, sail-cloth trousers. There was, indeed, as I recall them even now, something strangely suggestive of hopeless infirmity about them. As they flapped and bulged wearily in the tar-laden zephyrs, the knees would become full and, in some inexplicable way, would give ghostly hints of the knock-kneed idiosyncrasies of the late wearer. Then the whole garment would become mysteriously distended, as if some poor mariner were being hanged by the neck, and the choking and plethora had reached even to the very ends of his pantaloons; reminding me quite vividly, the while, of a pair of piratical legs--which a sailor in the forecastle of our steamer, the Diamond, had shown me in the frontispiece of a very greasy book--dangling pictorially from the gibbet of the lamented Captain Kidd. Well, what I set out to say is, that for a long time afterward I held the juvenile opinion that those same second-hand sailor trousers, big at the bottom, and little at the top, like the churn in the venerable riddle, were alone what made me then so suddenly and so mysteriously sea-sick. I did not, however, think much about it at the time, or of anything else, but getting back with all possible expedition to the steamer and to bed. * * * * * Sea-sickness, you may have observed, is very much like first love. While it lasts, you rarely get any sympathy from those not affected like yourself; and when it is over, you are the first to laugh at it. And there is always likely to be something ludicrous about it--in the memory; but, _durante bello_, it is serious enough, in all conscience. Now the second voyage of our steamer Diamond was a remarkably calm one; and I, true to the instincts of your convalescent, whether of nausea or erotomania, ridiculed my previous troubles. But on the third voyage the lake was rougher than ever. I fought my weakness valiantly; yet it seemed a battle against all visible Nature,--the water, the sky, and the crazy old steamboat, to say nothing of my own recalcitrant little body. I was forced to yield. I had, however, been a sailor too long for any faint show of sympathy. The steward, too, was short of help; and there was no escape for me. I was accordingly called out to do duty at the dinner-table, where I staggered about under plates and platters to the terror of all immediate beholders. I had little or no control of my legs and hands; and my head, if I remember correctly now, was engaged in framing and passing silent resolutions of want of confidence in my stomach.