ABSTRACT
Bertha did not mean to be funny, and did not even attempt it. I t was the captain who made the pun, not she, poor innocent girl!
Despite an excellent education, the captain found great difficulty in writing even a letter. He disguised a great quantity of bad spelling under a scrawling style of penmanship, so that a dash in the middle of a word would pass for one or more m's or n's, as the necessities of the English language might require. He, howeverso potent is love — purchased an elegant memorandum - book, in which he penned down the excellent things wherewith Bertha at different times favoured him. His desk contained this precious volume. Every maxim and sentence in it he declared to be excellent, saying, " I f they arn't witty-which I think they are-they are sure to be d-d sensible, and that's someth ing ."The first entry was to this effect : "How wretched it must be to be without a friend ! I t is the heart's e x i l e . " T o the end of this apothegm the adoring Crosier had added the words : "True, by Jove ! and poetical, too.— M. C . " A n o t h e r line ran as follows : "Soldiers and sailors are never friendly, because fire and water cannot a g r e e . " T h i s time the captain's remark was more vigorous. He wrote : "Thundering hard ; but by blazes she's right!—M. C . " T h e forcible language used by the military annotator may be accounted for by stating that the gallant gentleman usually entered his souvenirs of the evening's conversation on his return home, an event for which there was no fixed hour. The later the return, the greater strength he threw into his commentary.
