onfuse my own mind, (I trust not the reader's). Perhaps
the shortest way to let you understand how it was is to tell you all
about it.

My name is Robert Smith--not an unusual name, I am given to understand.
It was of little use to me during the period of my boyhood, for I never
got any other name than Bob--sometimes _soft_ was added. I had a
father. He loved me. As a natural consequence, I loved him. He was
old, partially bald, silver-haired, kind, affectionate, good, five feet
six, and wore spectacles. I, at the time I write of; was young, stout,
well-grown, active, and had a long nose--much too long a nose: it was
the only point in regard to which I was sensitive. It was owing to the
length of this member, I believe, that I once went by the name of
Mozambique. You see, I conceal nothing. The remarkable--the
mysterious--the every way astonishing incidents I am about to relate,
require that I should be more than usually careful and particular in
stating things precisely as I saw them and understood them at the time.

In this view of the matter I should remark that the softness with which
I was charged did not refer to my muscles--they were hard and well
developed--but to my intellect. I take this opportunity of stating that
I think the charge unjust. But, to conclude my description of myself; I
am romantic. One of my dearest companions used to say that my nose was
the same, minus the tic! What he meant by that I never could make out.
I doubt if he himself knew.

My chief delight in my leisure hours was to retire to my bedroom and
immerse myself in books of travel and adventure. This was my mania. No
one can conceive the delight I experienced in following heroes of every
name over the pathless deep and through the trackless forests of every
clime. My heart swelled within me, and the blood rushed through my
veins like liquid fire, as I read of chasing lions, tigers, elephants,
in Africa; white bears and walrus in the Polar regions; and deer and
bisons on the American prairies. I struggled long to suppress the flame
that consumed me, but I could not. It grew hotter and hotter. At last,
it burst forth--and this brings me to the point.

I thought--one dark, dismal night in the middle of November--I thought,
(mind, I don't say I determined; no, but I thought), of running away
from home and going to sea!

I confess it with shame. The image of my dear father rose before me
with a kind and sorrowful loo