n't well."

What a comment on a style that might have adorned the Correct Letter
Writer!

"He was, on the contrary, in the enjoyment of perfect health, sir," said
I, tartly.

"All I can pick out of it is, I ain't to offer you any money; and as
there is n't any direction easier to follow, nor pleasanter to obey,
here's my hand!" And he wrung mine with a grip that would have flattened
a chain cable.

"What's your line, here? You ain't sodgering, are you?"

"No; I 'm travelling, for pleasure, for information, for pastime, as one
might say."

"In the general do-nothing and careless line of business? That ain't
mine. No, by jingo! I don't eat my fish without matching, ay, and
salting them too, I ain't ashamed to say. I 'm captain, supercargo, and
pilot of my own craft; take every lunar that is taken aboard. I 've writ
every line that ever is writ in the log-book, and I vaccinated every
man and boy aboard for the natural small-pox with these fingers and
this tool that you see here!" And he produced an old and very rusty
instrument of veterinary surgery from his vest-pocket, where it lay with
copper money, tobacco quids, and lucifer matches.

I quickly remembered the character for inordinate boast-fulness his
brother had given me, and of which he thus, without any provocation on
my part, afforded me a slight specimen. Now, perhaps, at this stage of
my narrative, I might never have alluded to him at all, if it were
not for the opportunity it gives me of recording how nobly and how
resolutely I resisted what may be called the most trying temptation of
human nature. An inveterate dram-drinker has been known to turn away
from the proffered glass; an incurable gambler has been seen to decline
the invitation to "cut in;" dignitaries of the church have begged
off being made bishops; but is there any mention in history of an
anecdote-monger suffering himself to be patiently vanquished, and
retiring from the field without firing off at least an "incident that
occurred to himself"? If ever a man was sorely tried, _I_ was. Here was
this coarsely minded vulgar dog, with nothing pictorial or imaginative
in his nature, heaping story upon story of his own feats and
achievements, in which not one solitary situation ever suggested an
interest or awakened an anxiety; and I, who could have shot my tigers,
crippled my leopards, hamstrung my lionesses, rescued men from drowning,
and women from fire,--with little life touches to thrill the