repeated the commodore, flourishing his hand, and waxing warm
with earnestness, "there is but one 'sogdollager' in the universe,
and that is in Lake Otsego. A 'sogdollager' is a salmon trout, and
not a species; a sort of father to all the salmon trout in this part
of the world; a scaly patriarch."

"I make no doubt _your_ 'sogdollager' is scaly enough; but what is
the use in wasting words about such a trifle? A whale is the only
fish fit to occupy a gentleman's thoughts. As long as I have been at
sea, I have never witnessed the taking of more than three whales."

This allusion happily preserved the peace; for, if there were any
thing in the world for which the commodore entertained a profound,
but obscure reverence, it was for a whale. He even thought better of
a man for having actually seen one, gambolling in the freedom of the
ocean; and his mind became suddenly oppressed by the glory of a
mariner, who had passed his life among such gigantic animals. Shoving
back his cap, the old man gazed steadily at the captain a minute, and
all his displeasure about the 'sogdollagers' vanished, though, in his
inmost mind, he set down all that the other had told him on that
particular subject, as so many parts of a regular 'fish story.'

"Captain Truck," he said, with solemnity, "I acknowledge myself to be
but an ignorant and inexperienced man, one who has passed his life on
this lake, which, broad and beautiful as it is, must seem a pond in
the eyes of a seaman like yourself, who have passed your days on the
Atlantic----"

"Atlantic!" interrupted the captain contemptuously, "I should have
but a poor opinion of myself, had I seen nothing but the Atlantic!
Indeed, I never can believe I am at sea at all, on the Atlantic, the
passages between New-York and Portsmouth being little more than so
much canalling along a tow-path. If you wish to say any thing about
oceans, talk of the Pacific, or of the Great South Sea, where a man
may run a month with a fair wind, and hardly go from island to
island. Indeed, that is an ocean in which there is a manufactory of
islands, for they turn them off in lots to supply the market, and of
a size to suit customers."

"A manufactory of islands!" repeated the commodore, who began to
entertain an awe of his companion, that he never expected to feel for
any human being on Lake Otsego; "are you certain, sir, there is no
mistake in this?"

"None in the least; not only islands, but whole Archipelagos are