w of a whaling-ship which was on the
point of starting for the ice-bound seas of the Frozen Regions, and
making sundry remarks to a stout, fair-haired boy of fifteen, who stood
by his side gazing at the ship with an expression of deep sadness.

"She's a trim-built craft and a good sea-boat, I'll be bound, Master
Fred," observed the sailor; "but she's too small by half, accordin' to
my notions, and I _have_ seen a few whalers in my day. Them bow-timbers,
too, are scarce thick enough for goin' bump agin the ice o' Davis'
Straits. Howsom'iver, I've seen worse craft drivin' a good trade in the
Polar Seas."

"She's a first-rate craft in all respects; and you have too high an
opinion of your own judgment," replied the youth indignantly. "Do you
suppose that my father, who is an older man than yourself and as good a
sailor, would buy a ship, and fit her out, and go off to the
whale-fishery in her, if he did not think her a good one?"

"Ah! Master Fred, you're a chip of the old block--neck or nothing--carry
on all sail till you tear the masts out of her! Reef the t'gallant sails
of your temper, boy, and don't run foul of an old man who has been all
but a wet-nurse to ye--taught ye to walk, and swim, and pull an oar, and
build ships, and has hauled ye out o' the sea when ye fell in--from the
time ye could barely stump along on two legs, lookin' like as if ye was
more nor half-seas-over."

"Well, Buzzby," replied the boy, laughing, "if you've been all that to
me, I think you _have_ been a _wet_-nurse too! But why do you run down
my father's ship? Do you think I'm going to stand that? No! not even
from you, old boy."

"Hallo! youngster," shouted a voice from the deck of the vessel in
question, "run up and tell your father we're all ready, and if he don't
make haste he'll lose the tide, so he will, and that'll make us have to
start on a Friday, it will, an' that'll not do for me, nohow it won't;
so make sail and look sharp about it, do--won't you?"

"What a tongue he's got!" remarked Buzzby. "Before I'd go to sea with a
first mate who jawed like that I'd be a landsman. Don't ever you git to
talk too much, Master Fred, wotever ye do. My maxim is--and it has
served me through life, uncommon--'Keep your weather-eye open and your
tongue housed 'xcept when you've got occasion to use it.' If that
fellow'd use his eyes more and his tongue less, he'd see your father
comin' down the road there, right before the wind, with his old sist