I found the place in my notebook, cleared my voice, and began.
"The ship was sailing gloriously under a press of canvas. Her
foretopgallant-sail swelled to its cotton-like hue out of the black
shadow of its incurving. High aloft, the swelling squares of her
studding-sails gleamed in the misty sheen of the pale luminary,
flinging her frosty light from point to point of the tapering masts,
which rose, rose, rose into the morning air, as though with intent
to pierce the glowing orb of day, poised in the heavens like one vast
ball of liquid fire. Through the wind-hushed spaces of the canvas,
where the foretopmaststay-sail--"
"I know that foretopmaststay-sail," said the funny man, suddenly. I
withered him with a look, and turned over the page.
"Here," I said, "is another tip-topper. What do you think of this
for a storm?--'The liquid acclivities were rising taller, and more
threatening. With a scream of passion the tortured ship hurled itself
at their deep-green crests. Cascades of rain, and hail, and snow,
were dashing down upon her unprotected bulwarks. The inky sky was one
vast thunder-clap, out of which the steely shaft of an electric flash
pierced its dazzling path into the heart of the raving deep. The
scud--'
"I know that scud," said a hateful voice. But, before I could
annihilate its owner, the pale face of Mr. SPILKINGS, with his
dead-eyes turned in, dashed breathlessly into the saloon. "By all
that's holy," he shouted, "the Captain's gone mad, and the crew have
thrown off all disguise. We are manned by ourang-outangs!"