CATASTROPHE AT SEA

The captain had been spending his time making toys for the crew to play with in their bunks; they are only allowed up to go to the bathroom. Sometimes, writes the captain in his log book, I tell them stories until they sleep. Sooner or later we must meet an iceberg or a reef; meanwhile it is easier for one in the position of a father, as it were, in hopeless circumstances to reduce his grown sons, big hairy men most of them, into little children; lest they turn on me as men turn on God, for things that neither God nor I can be blamed for. .. The last entry in the captain's log book reads, I have run out of toys and stories; and what seemed to be scurvy turns out to be bedsores. There is a general restlessness and much crying in the crew's quarters. They fight over their toys. I have had to take harsh means; spanking them over my knees. Soon they will turn; my only hope is that we meet with an iceberg or a reef soon. . . We are running out of lollipops, and I am thinking of killing them one by one on the poop deck and dropping them into the ocean away from the sight of the others. . . I hate to start this because an iceberg or a reef might just turn up... Still, soon I must make a choice... I shouldn't want to sin unnecessarily...