Once, in the forenoon, he had a bo'sun's chair rigged over the rail, stripped to his trousers, and went overboard with a pot of paint.

'I don't like the way this schooner's painted,' said he, 'and I've taken a down upon her name.' But he tired of it in half an hour, and the schooner went on her way with an incongruous patch of colour on the stern, and the word Farallone part obliterated and part looking through.

He refused to stand either the middle or the morning watch.

It was fine-weather sailing, he said; and asked, with a laugh, 'Who ever heard of the old man standing watch himself ?' To the dead reckoning which Herrick still tried to keep, he would pay not the least attention nor afford the least assistance.
'What do we want of dead reckoning ?' he asked.

'We get the sun all right, don't we ?' 'We mayn't get it always though,' objected Herrick.