pt kicking his heels against the
water-casks and squinting up at the skies; it made us feel very queer.

"Well, I must confess you are not in the regular way of trading."

"Oh, no," said the stranger; "I am contraband--entirely contraband."

"And how did you come on board?"

At this question the stranger again looked curiously up at the skies,
and continued to do so for more than a minute; he then turned his gaze
upon the captain.

"No, no," said the captain; "eloquent dumb show won't do with me; you
didn't come, like Mother Shipton, upon a birch broom. How did you come
on board my vessel?"

"I walked on board," said the stranger.

"You walked on board; and where did you conceal yourself?"

"Below."

"Very good; and why didn't you stay below altogether?"

"Because I wanted fresh air. I'm in a delicate state of health, you see;
it doesn't do to stay in a confined place too long."

"Confound the binnacle!" said the captain; it was his usual oath when
anything bothered him, and he could not make it out. "Confound the
binnacle!--what a delicate-looking animal you are. I wish you had stayed
where you were; your delicacy would have been all the same to me.
Delicate, indeed!"

"Yes, very," said the stranger, coolly.

There was something so comic in the assertion of his delicateness of
health, that we should all have laughed; but we were somewhat scared,
and had not the inclination.

"How have you lived since you came on board?" inquired the captain.

"Very indifferently."

"But how? What have you eaten? and what have you drank?"

"Nothing, I assure you. All I did while was below was--"

"What?"

"Why, I sucked my thumbs like a polar bear in its winter quarters."

And as he spoke the stranger put his two thumbs into his mouth, and
extraordinary thumbs they were, too, for each would have filled an
ordinary man's mouth.

"These," said the stranger, pulling them out, and gazing at them
wistfully, and with a deep sigh he continued,--

"These were thumbs at one time; but they are nothing now to what they
were."

"Confound the binnacle!" muttered the captain to himself, and then he
added, aloud,--

"It's cheap living, however; but where are you going to, and why did you
come aboard?"

"I wanted a cheap cruise, and I am going there and back."

"Why, that's where we are going," said the captain.

"Then we are brothers," exclaimed the stranger, hopping off the
water-cask like a kangaroo, and bounding