nday-school nater--to become
somethin' different from the little Willies an' the clever Tommies what I
read about therein. They was all good, an' they went to their reward too
soon in life for me, who even in them days regarded death as a stuffy an'
unpleasant diversion. Learnin' at an early period that virtue was its only
reward, an' a-wish-in' others, I says to myself: 'Jim,' says I, 'if you
wishes to become a magnet in this village, be sinful. If so be as you are
a good boy, an' kind to your sister an' all other animals, you'll end up
as a prosperous father with fifteen hundred a year sure, with never no
hope for no public preferment beyond bein' made the superintendent of the
Sunday-school; but if so be as how you're bad, you may become famous, an'
go to Congress, an' have your picture in the Sunday noospapers.' So I
looks around for books tellin' how to get 'Famous in Fifty Ways,' an'
after due reflection I settles in my mind that to be a pirate's just the
thing for me, seein' as how it's both profitable an' healthy. Passin' over
details, let me tell you that I became a pirate. I ran away to sea, an' by
dint of perseverance, as the Sunday-school books useter say, in my badness
I soon became the centre of a evil lot; an' when I says to 'em, 'Boys, I
wants to be a pirate chief,' they hollers back, loud like, 'Jim, we're
with you,' an' they was. For years I was the terror of the Venezuelan
Gulf, the Spanish Main, an' the Pacific seas, but there was precious
little money into it. The best pay I got was from a Sunday noospaper,
which paid me well to sign an article on 'Modern Piracy' which I didn't
write. Finally business got so bad the crew began to murmur, an' I was at
my wits' ends to please 'em; when one mornin', havin' passed a restless
night, I picks up a noospaper and sees in it that 'Next Saturday's steamer
is a weritable treasure-ship, takin' out twelve million dollars, and the
jewels of a certain prima donna valued at five hundred thousand.' 'Here's
my chance,' says I, an' I goes to sea and lies in wait for the steamer. I
captures her easy, my crew bein' hungry, an' fightin' according like. We
steals the box a-hold-in' the jewels an' the bag containin' the millions,
hustles back to our own ship, an' makes for our rondyvoo, me with two
bullets in my leg, four o' my crew killed, and one engin' of my ship
disabled by a shot--but happy. Twelve an' a half millions at one break is
enough to make anybody happy."

"I s