s just my
feelin', Gar'ner, and I won't say whether it's a right feelin' or
not--help yourself."

"It's a right feeling, as between you and me, Captain Daggett, as I can
answer for. My heart tells me you are right, and I thank you from it, for
these marks of friendship. But, you must not forget there are such persons
as owners, in this world. I shall have trouble enough on my hands, with my
owner, and I do not wish you to have trouble with yours. Here is a nice
little breeze to take you out to sea again; and by passing to the
southward of Bermuda, you can make a short cut, and hit the trades far
enough to windward to answer all your purposes."

"Thankee, thankee, Gar'ner--I know the road, and can find the places I'm
going to, though no great navigator. Now. I never took a lunar in my life,
and can't do anything with a chronometer; but as for finding the way
between Martha's Vineyard and Cape Horn, I'll turn my back on no
shipmaster living."

"I'm afraid, Captain Daggett, that we have both of us turned our backs on
our true course, when we suffered ourselves to get jammed away down here,
on Hatteras. Why, I never saw the place before, and never wish to see it
again! It's as much out of the track of a whaler, or sealer, as Jupiter is
out of the track of Mars, or Venus."

"Oh, there go your lunars, about which I know nothing, and care nothing. I
tell you, Gar'ner, a man with a good judgment, can just as well jog about
the 'arth, without any acquaintance with lunars, as he can with. Then,
your sealer hasn't half as much need of your academy-sort of navigation,
as another man. More than half of our calling is luck; and all the best
sealing stations I ever heard of, have been blundered on by some chap who
has lost his way. I despise lunars, if the truth must be said; yet I like
to go straight to my port of destination. Take a little sugar with your
rum-and-water--we Vineyard folks like sweetening."

"For which purpose, or that of going straight to your port, Captain
Daggett, you've come down here, on your way to the Pacific; or, about five
hundred miles out of your way!"

"I came here for company, Gar'ner. We hadn't much choice, you must allow,
for we couldn't have weathered the shoals on the other tack. I see no
great harm in our positions, if you hadn't got dismasted. That's a two or
three hundred dollar job, and may make your owner grumble a little, but
it's no killing matter. I'll stick by you, and you can tell the