move to keep the vessel
trim. I didn't go to sea, my friend, for the purpose of being tipped
over in mid-ocean every time one of my cargo wanted to shift his weight
from one leg to the other."

"It was bad enough with the elephants, wasn't it, papa?" said Shem.

"Yes, indeed, my son," returned the patriarch. "It was bad enough with
the elephants. We had to shift our ballast half a dozen times a day to
keep the boat from travelling on her beam ends, the elephants moved about
so much; and when we came to the question of provender, it took up about
nine-tenths of our hold to store hay and peanuts enough to keep them
alive and good-tempered. On the whole, I think it's rather late in the
day, considering the trouble I took to save anything but myself and my
family, to be criticised as I now am. You ought to be much obliged to me
for saving any animals at all. Most people in my position would have
built a yacht for themselves and family, and let everything else slide."

"That is quite true," observed Raleigh, with a pacificatory nod at Noah.
"You were eminently unselfish, and while, with Mr. Barnum, I exceedingly
regret that the Saurians and Therii and other tribes were left on the
pier when you sailed, I nevertheless think that you showed most excellent
judgment at the time."

"He was the only man who had any at all, for that matter," suggested
Shem, "and it required all his courage to show it. Everybody was guying
him. Sinners stood around the yard all day and every day, criticising
the model; one scoffer pretended he thought her a canal-boat, and asked
how deep the flood was likely to be on the tow-path, and whether we
intended to use mules in shallow water and giraffes in deep; another
asked what time allowance we expected to get in a fifteen-mile run, and
hinted that a year and two months per mile struck him as being the proper
thing--"

"It was far from pleasant," said Noah, tapping his fingers together
reflectively. "I don't want to go through it again, and if, as Raleigh
suggests, history is likely to repeat herself, I'll sublet the contract
to Barnum here, and let him get the chaff."

"It was all right in the end, though, dad," said Shem. "We had the great
laugh on 'hoi polloi' the second day out."

"We did, indeed," said Noah. "When we told 'em we only carried first-
class passengers and had no room for emigrants, they began to see that
the Ark wasn't such an old tub, after all; and a good ninety p