s by sea and land, wonderful coincidences,
unexpected turns of fortune, I adapt to myself, and coolly relate
them as personal experiences. Listeners have afterwards told me that I
possess an amount of consistence, a verisimilitude in these narratives
perfectly marvellous, and only to be accounted for by supposing that
I myself must, for the time being, be the dupe of my own imagination.
Indeed, I am sure such must be the true explanation of this curious
fact. How, in any other mode, explain the rash wagers, absurd and
impossible engagements I have contracted in such moments, backing myself
to leap twenty-three feet on the level sward; to dive in six fathoms
water, and fetch up Heaven knows what of shells and marine curiosities
from the bottom; to ride the most unmanageable of horses; and,
single-handed and unarmed, to fight the fiercest bulldog in England?
Then, as to intellectual feats, what have I not engaged to perform? Sums
of mental arithmetic; whole newspapers committed to memory after one
reading; verse compositions, on any theme, in ten languages; and once a
written contract to compose a whole opera, with all the scores, within
twenty-four hours. To a nature thus strangely constituted, wine was a
perfect magic wand, transforming a poor, weak, distrustful modest man
into a hero; and yet, even with such temptations, my excesses were
extremely rare and unfrequent. Are there many, I would ask, that could
resist the passport to such a dreamland, with only the penalty of a
headache the next morning? Some one would, perhaps, suggest that these
were enjoyments to pay forfeit on. Well, so they were; but I must not
anticipate. And now to my tale.

To Hammond's brew there succeeded one by Oxley, made after an American
receipt, and certainly both fragrant and insinuating; and then came a
concoction made by the priest, which he called "Father Hosey's pride."
It was made in a bowl, and drunk out of lemon-rinds, ingeniously fitted
into the wine-glasses. I remember no other particulars about it, though
I can call to mind much of the conversation that preceded it. How I gave
a long historical account of my family, that we came originally from
Corsica, the name Potts being a corruption of Pozzo, and that we were
of the same stock as the celebrated diplomatist Pozzo di Borgo. Our
unclaimed estates in the island were of fabulous value, but in asserting
my right to them I should accept thirteen mortal duels, the arrears of
a hundred