try and argue with him.

A few nights since, one of the old sailors took out a pack of greasy
cards, and, calling to one of his companions, said that he would teach
David and I to play a two-handed game, which we should find very
amusing. David was all eagerness to learn; but I told him that I had
rather not touch them.

"Nonsense, man!" said David; "I thought that you had too much sense to
be afraid of little pieces of pasteboard, with red and black spots on
them. They are not going to poison you."

"But I have promised my mother that I would never play cards," I
replied; "and, besides, it would give me no pleasure, for I have heard
of so much evil from the use of them that I cannot see them without
pain."

The old sailor, who had only wished to please me, was very angry at what
I said, and began swearing dreadfully. David tried to pacify him, and
proposed that they should take a game together, and he'd be bound that I
would want to play before they had done with it.

"Would you wish," I asked, "that I should be tempted to break a promise
to a widowed mother, who never in my life denied me any thing that was
reasonable?"

"No!" said David, after a moment's thought; "give me your hand! You are
perfectly right, and I honor you for it."

Before he had time to say any more, Brown Tom came in to look for a gun,
which had been brought on board; for the water was covered with ducks,
and he was anxious to have a shot at them. I should like to try my hand
in the same way; for when fish and birds are used for food, my
conscience don't hurt me about killing them. That's the reason that I
like mackerel-fishing, though I have no fondness for mackerels
themselves, for they are cannibals. We use a piece of one for bait for
the rest, and don't have lines more than three or four yards long. This
is a very different thing from catching cod, where they pull them up
through many fathoms of water. Clary says that next year he means to go
out to the Banks for cod, if he can get some of his friends to make up a
party for the purpose. You never saw any one so changed as he is.

Last week there came up a storm, when we were near the land, and they
hauled into port. Clarendon walked off on shore in his fishing-clothes,
without appearing in the least ashamed of them, and went to make a call
on a gentleman in the place, whom he had seen in Virginia a year or two
since. I wish I had been well enough to have gone with him, for he saw a
g