ng portez-vous.' Being used to meet with
squalls, however, I shall accept your offer under the last condition
named."

I liked the stranger's caution. It denoted a proper care of character,
and furnished a proof of responsibility. The condition was therefore
accepted on my part as frankly as it had been urged on his.

"And now, sir," I added, when we had shaken each other very cordially by
the hand, "may I presume to ask your name?"

"I am called Noah, and I don't care who knows it. I am not ashamed of
either of my names, whatever else I may be ashamed of."

"Noah--?"

"Poke, at your service." He pronounced the word slowly and very
distinctly, as if what he had just said of his self-confidence were
true. As I had afterward occasion to take his signature, I shall at once
give it in the proper form--"Capt. Noah Poke."

"Of what part of England are you a native, Mr. Poke?"

"I believe I may say of the new parts."

"I do not know that any portion of the island was so designated. Will
you have the good-nature to explain yourself?"

"I'm a native of Stunin'tun, in the State of Connecticut, in old New
England. My parents being dead, I was sent to sea a four-year-old, and
here I am, walking about the kingdom of France without a cent in my
pocket, a shipwrecked mariner. Hard as my lot is, to say the truth, I'd
about as leave starve as live by speaking their d--d lingo."

"Shipwrecked--a mariner--starving--and a Yankee!"

"All that, and maybe more, too; though, by your leave, commodore, we'll
drop the last title. I'm proud enough to call myself a Yankee, but my
back is apt to get up when I hear an Englishman use the word. We are yet
friends, and it may be well enough to continue so until some good comes
of it to one or other of the parties."

"I ask your pardon, Mr. Poke, and will not offend again. Have you
circumnavigated the globe?"

Captain Poke snapped his fingers, in pure contempt of the simplicity of
the question.

"Has the moon ever sailed round the 'arth! Look here, a moment,
commodore"--he took from his pocket an apple, of which he had been
munching half a-dozen during the walk, and held it up to view--"draw
your lines which way you will on this sphere; crosswise or lengthwise,
up or down, zigzag or parpendic'lar, and you will not find more
traverses than I've worked about the old ball!"

"By land as well as by sea?"

"Why, as to the land, I've had my share of that, too; for it has been my
hard fortu