s if his mirth had suddenly broken
through all restraint. Captain Truck, who had been lighting a cigar,
commenced smoking, and, seldom indulging in boisterous merriment, he
responded with his eyes, shaking his head from time to time, with
great satisfaction, as thoughts more ludicrous than common came over
his imagination.

"Harkee, commodore," he said, blowing the smoke upward, and watching
it with his eye until it floated away in a little cloud, "neither of
us is a chicken. You have studied life on the fresh water, and I have
studied life on the salt. I do not say which produces the best
scholars, but I know that both make better Christians than the jack-
screw system."

"Just so. I tell them in the village that little is gained in the end
by following the blind; that is my doctrine, sir."

"And a very good doctrine it would prove, I make no doubt, were you
to enter into it a little more fully--"

"Well, sir, I can explain--"

"Not another syllable is necessary. I know what you mean as well as
if I said it myself, and, moreover, short sermons are always the
best. You mean that a pilot ought to know where he is steering, which
is perfectly sound doctrine. My own experience tells me, that if you
press a sturgeon's nose with your foot, it will spring up as soon as
it is loosened. Now the jack-screw will heave a great strain, no
doubt; but the moment it is let up, down comes all that rests on it,
again. This Mr. Dodge, I suppose you know, has been a passenger with
me once or twice?"

"I have heard as much--they say he was tigerish in the fight with the
niggers--quite an out-and-outer."

"Ay, I hear he tells some such story himself; but harkee, commodore,
I wish to do justice to all men, and I find there is very little of
it inland, hereaway. The hero of that day is about to marry your
beautiful Miss Effingham; other men did their duty too, as, for
instance, was the case with Mr. John Effingham; but Paul Blunt-Powis-
Effingham finished the job. As for Mr. Steadfast Dodge, sir, I say
nothing, unless it be to add that he was nowhere near _me_ in
that transaction; and if any man felt like an alligator in Lent, on
that occasion, it was your humble servant."

"Which means that he was not nigh the enemy, I'll swear before a
magistrate."

"And no fear of perjury. Any one who saw Mr. John Effingham and Mr.
Powis on that day, might have sworn that they were father and son,
and any one who _did not see_ Mr. Dodge might