y's ben, or what they's ben a doin', or how they got their money. Ask
me no questions, and I'll tell ye no lies, is 'bout the best philosophy
for them. Wal, it didn't do no good to ask Cap'n Brown questions too
close, 'cause you didn't git no satisfaction. Nobody rightly knew 'bout
who his folks was, or where they come from; and, ef a body asked him,
he used to say that the very fust he know'd 'bout himself he was a young
man walkin' the streets in London.

"But, yer see, boys, he hed money, and that is about all folks wanter
know when a man comes to settle down. And he bought that 'are place, and
built that 'are house. He built it all sea-cap'n fashion, so's to feel
as much at home as he could. The parlor was like a ship's cabin. The
table and chairs was fastened down to the floor, and the closets was
made with holes to set the casters and the decanters and bottles in,
jest's they be at sea; and there was stanchions to hold on by; and they
say that blowy nights the cap'n used to fire up pretty well with his
grog, till he hed about all he could carry, and then he'd set and hold
on, and hear the wind blow, and kind o' feel out to sea right there to
hum. There wasn't no Mis' Cap'n Brown, and there didn't seem likely to
be none. And whether there ever hed been one, nobody know'd. He hed an
old black Guinea nigger-woman, named Quassia, that did his work. She was
shaped pretty much like one o' these 'ere great crookneck-squashes. She
wa'n't no gret beauty, I can tell you; and she used to wear a gret red
turban and a yaller short gown and red petticoat, and a gret string o'
gold beads round her neck, and gret big gold hoops in her ears, made
right in the middle o' Africa among the heathen there. For all she
was black, she thought a heap o' herself, and was consid'able sort o'
predominative over the cap'n. Lordy massy! boys, it's alius so. Get a
man and a woman together,--any sort o' woman you're a mind to, don't
care who 'tis,--and one way or another she gets the rule over him, and
he jest has to train to her fife. Some does it one way, and some does
it another; some does it by jawin' and some does it by kissin', and some
does it by faculty and contrivance; but one way or another they allers
does it. Old Cap'n Brown was a good stout, stocky kind o' John Bull sort
o' fellow, and a good judge o' sperits, and allers kep' the best in them
are cupboards o' his'n; but, fust and last, things in his house went
pretty much as old Quass