and improve in moral
attainments; all of which goes to establish the truth of the monikin
philosophy. You begin to lay less stress on physical, and more on moral
excellences; and, in short, many things show that the time for the final
liberation and grand development of your brains, is not far distant.
This much I very gladly concede; for, while the dogmas of our schools
are not to be disregarded, I very cheerfully admit that you are our
fellow-creatures, though in a more infant and less improved condition of
society."

"King!"

Here Dr. Reasono announced the necessity of taking a short intermission
in order to refresh himself. I retired with Captain Poke, to have
a little communication with my fellow-mortal, under the peculiar
circumstances in which we were placed, and to ask his opinion of what
had been said. Noah swore bitterly at some of the conclusions of the
monikin philosopher, affirming that he should like no better sport than
to hear him lecture in the streets of Stunin'tun, where, he assured me,
such doctrine would not be tolerated any longer than was necessary to
sharpen a harpoon, or to load a gun. Indeed, he did not know but the
Doctor would be incontinently kicked over into Rhode Island, without
ceremony.

"For that matter," continued the indignant old sealer, "I should ask
no better sport than to have permission to put the big toe of my right
foot, under full sail, against the part of the blackguard where his
beloved tail is stepped. That would soon bring him to reason. Why, as
for his cauda, if you will believe me, Sir John, I once saw a man, on
the coast of Patagonia--a savage, to be sure, and not a philosopher, as
this fellow pretends to be--who had an outrigger of this sort, as long
as a ship's ringtail-boom. And what was he, after all, but a poor devil
who did not know a sea-lion from a grampus!"

This assertion of Captain Poke relieved my mind considerably; and laying
aside the bison-skin, I asked him to have the goodness to examine the
localities, with some particularity, about the termination of the dorsal
bone, in order to ascertain if there were any encouraging signs to be
discovered. Captain Poke put on his spectacles, for time had brought the
worthy mariner to their use, as he said, "whenever he had occasion to
read fine print"; and, after some time, I had the satisfaction to hear
him declare, that if it was a cauda I wanted, there was as good a place
to step one, as could be found about