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.