s, I do, sir,' interposed Mark.

'Then you may judge from my style of living here, of my means of keeping
a man-servant. Besides, I am going to America immediately.'

'Well, sir,' returned Mark, quite unmoved by this intelligence 'from all
that ever I heard about it, I should say America is a very likely sort
of place for me to be jolly in!'

Again Martin looked at him angrily; and again his anger melted away in
spite of himself.

'Lord bless you, sir,' said Mark, 'what is the use of us a-going round
and round, and hiding behind the corner, and dodging up and down, when
we can come straight to the point in six words? I've had my eye upon you
any time this fortnight. I see well enough there's a screw loose in
your affairs. I know'd well enough the first time I see you down at the
Dragon that it must be so, sooner or later. Now, sir here am I, without
a sitiwation; without any want of wages for a year to come; for I saved
up (I didn't mean to do it, but I couldn't help it) at the Dragon--here
am I with a liking for what's wentersome, and a liking for you, and
a wish to come out strong under circumstances as would keep other men
down; and will you take me, or will you leave me?'

'How can I take you?' cried Martin.

'When I say take,' rejoined Mark, 'I mean will you let me go? and when I
say will you let me go, I mean will you let me go along with you? for go
I will, somehow or another. Now that you've said America, I see clear at
once, that that's the place for me to be jolly in. Therefore, if I don't
pay my own passage in the ship you go in, sir, I'll pay my own passage
in another. And mark my words, if I go alone it shall be, to carry out
the principle, in the rottenest, craziest, leakingest tub of a wessel
that a place can be got in for love or money. So if I'm lost upon the
way, sir, there'll be a drowned man at your door--and always a-knocking
double knocks at it, too, or never trust me!'

'This is mere folly,' said Martin.

'Very good, sir,' returned Mark. 'I'm glad to hear it, because if you
don't mean to let me go, you'll be more comfortable, perhaps, on account
of thinking so. Therefore I contradict no gentleman. But all I say is,
that if I don't emigrate to America in that case, in the beastliest old
cockle-shell as goes out of port, I'm--'

'You don't mean what you say, I'm sure,' said Martin.

'Yes I do,' cried Mark.

'I tell you I know better,' rejoined Martin.

'Very good, sir,' said Mark, with