CAPRICES OF THE SEA.
The steward was passing from the galley to the cabin table with a plate of hash. A sudden lurch made him lose his balance. His arms went into the air and the hash left the plate and went in a body against the side of the ship where a coil of rope hung; and it remained fast, the coil forming an oval frame for it. We pitied the steward but did not weep for the hash. Some of us thought we could understand the action of a company of boys at a boarding school, who were asked in Lent what luxury they would each propose to forego during the season of fasting and humiliation as a religious offering. Slips of paper were given to them and in a little while were collected. Every one of the forty papers bore the word, Hash. Some of our company were so lost to a sense of propriety as to exult at the steward’s mishap.