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very clean-shaved, and he always wore an eye-glass in his right eye.
It seemed to grow there, for it had no string, and he never took it
out except to wipe it. At first I thought he used to sleep in it, but
afterwards I found that this was a mistake. He put it in his trousers
pocket when he went to bed, together with his false teeth, of which he
had two beautiful sets that, my own being none of the best, have often
caused me to break the tenth commandment. But I am anticipating.

Soon after we had got under way evening closed in, and brought with it
very dirty weather. A keen breeze sprung up off land, and a kind of
aggravated Scotch mist soon drove everybody from the deck. As for the
/Dunkeld/, she is a flat-bottomed punt, and going up light as she was,
she rolled very heavily. It almost seemed as though she would go right
over, but she never did. It was quite impossible to walk about, so I
stood near the engines where it was warm, and amused myself with
watching the pendulum, which was fixed opposite to me, swinging slowly
backwards and forwards as the vessel rolled, and marking the angle she
touched at each lurch.

"That pendulum's wrong; it is not properly weighted," suddenly said a
somewhat testy voice at my shoulder. Looking round I saw the naval
officer whom I had noticed when the passengers came aboard.

"Indeed, now what makes you think so?" I asked.

"Think so. I don't think at all. Why there"--as she righted herself
after a roll--"if the ship had really rolled to the degree that thing
pointed to, then she would never have rolled again, that's all. But it
is just like these merchant skippers, they are always so confoundedly
careless."

Just then the dinner-bell rang, and I was not sorry, for it is a
dreadful thing to have to listen to an officer of the Royal Navy when
he gets on to that subject. I only know one worse thing, and that is
to hear a merchant skipper express his candid opinion of officers of
the Royal Navy.

Captain Good and I went down to dinner together, and there we found
Sir Henry Curtis already seated. He and Captain Good were placed
together, and I sat opposite to them. The captain and I soon fell into
talk about shooting and what not; he asking me many questions, for he
is very inquisitive about all sorts of things, and I answering them as
well as I could. Presently he got on to elephants.

"Ah, sir," called out somebody who was sitting near me, "you've
reached the right man for that; Hunter Quatermain should be able to
tell you about elephants if anybody can."

Sir Henry, who had been sitting quite quiet listening to our talk,
started visibly.

"Excuse me, sir," he said, leaning forward across the table, and
speaking in a low deep voice, a very suitable voice, it seemed to me,
to come out of those great lungs. "Excuse me, sir, but is your name
Allan Quatermain?"

I said that it was.

The big man made no further remark, but I heard him mutter "fortunate"

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