CHAPTER XXXII.
NARRATING HOW LIEUTENANT PUDDOCK AND CAPTAIN DEVEREUX BREWED A BOWL OF PUNCH, AND HOW THEY SANG AND DISCOURSED TOGETHER.
If people would only be content with that which is, let well alone, and allow to-day to resemble yesterday and to-morrow to day, the human race would be much fatter at no greater cost, and sleep remarkably well.

But so it is that the soul of man can no more rest here than the sea or the wind.

We are always plotting against our own repose, and as no man can stir in a crowd without disturbing others, it happens that even the quietest fellows are forced to fight for their _status quo_, and sometimes, though they would not move a finger or sacrifice a button for the chance of 'getting on,' are sulkily compelled to cut capers like the rest.

Nature will have it so, and has no end of resources, and will not suffer even the sluggish to sit still, but if nothing else will do, pins a cracker to their skirts, in the shape of a tender passion, or some other whim, and so sets them bouncing in their own obese and clumsy way, to the trouble of others as well as their own discomfort.

It is a hard thing, but so it is; the comfort of absolute stagnation is nowhere permitted us.