we sat there, he urgin' me to ship, an' I chaffin' him cheerful over
the bottle.

"Arter a while I begun to feel a little queer; things got foggy in my
upper works, an' I remembers, faint-like, of signin' a paper; then I
remembers bein' in a small boat; an' then I remembers nothin' until I
heard the mate's whistle pipin' all hands on deck. I tumbled up with
the rest; an' there I was--on board of a whaler outward bound for a three
years' cruise, an' my dear little lass ashore awaitin' for me."

"Miserable wretch!" said Miss Abigail, in a voice that vibrated
among the tin platters on the dresser. This was Miss Abigail's way of
testifying her sympathy.

"Thankee, marm," returned Sailor Ben, doubtfully.

"No talking to the man at the wheel," cried the Captain. Upon which we
all laughed. "Spin!" added my grandfather.

Sailor Ben resumed:

"I leave you to guess the wretchedness as fell upon me, for I've not got
the gift to tell you. There I was down on the ship's books for a three
years' viage, an' no help for it. I feel nigh to six hundred years old
when I think how long that viage was. There isn't no hour-glass as runs
slow enough to keep a tally of the slowness of them fust hours. But I
done my duty like a man, seem' there wasn't no way of gettin' out of it.
I told my shipmates of the trick as had been played on me, an they tried
to cheer me up a bit; but I was sore sorrowful for a long spell. Many a
night on watch I put my face in my hands and sobbed for thinkin' of the
little woman left among the land-sharks, an' no man to have an eye on
her, God bless her!"

Here Kitty softly drew her chair nearer to Sailor Ben, and rested one
hand on his arm.

"Our adventures among the whales, I take it, doesn't consarn the present
company here assembled. So I give that the go by. There's an end to
everythin', even to a whalin' viage. My heart all but choked me the day
we put into New Bedford with our cargo of ile. I got my three years' pay
in a lump, an' made for New York like a flash of lightnin'. The people
hove to and looked at me, as I rushed through the streets like a madman,
until I came to the spot where the lodgin'-house stood on West Street.
But, Lord love ye, there wasn't no sech lodgin'-house there, but a great
new brick shop.

"I made bold to go in an' ask arter the old place, but nobody knowed
nothin' about it, save as it had been torn down two years or more. I was
adrift now, for I had reckoned all them days