upil's health.

"He has had a rough night," the sailor answers, "but is now a bit calm.
In truth, he only wants a bit of good steering to get him into smooth
weather again." Thus satisfying the inquirers, he hurries up stairs as
the vote-cribber hurries down, and setting his offering on the
window-sill, draws from his bosom the concealed flask. "There, Tom!" he
says, with childlike satisfaction, holding the flask before him--"only
two pulls. To-morrow reef down to one; and the day after swear a
dissolution of copartnership, for this chap (he points to the whiskey)
is too mighty for you."

Tom hesitates, as if questioning the quality of the drug he is about to
administer.

"Only two!" interrupts the sailor. "It will reduce the ground-swell a
bit." The outcast places the flask to his lips, and having drank with
contorted face passes it back with a sigh, and extends his right hand.
"My honor is nothing to the world, Spunyarn, but it is yet something to
me; and by it I swear (here he grasps tighter the hand of the old
sailor, as a tear moistens his suffused cheeks) never to touch the
poison again. It has grappled me like a fierce animal I could not shake
off; it has made me the scoffed of felons--I will cease to be its
victim; and having gained the victory, be hereafter a friend to myself."

"God bless you--may you never want a friend, Tom--and may He give you
strength to keep the resolution. That's my wish." And the old sailor
shook Tom's hand fervently, in pledge of his sincerity.

CHAPTER V.

IN WHICH MR. SNIVEL, COMMONLY CALLED THE ACCOMMODATION MAN, IS
INTRODUCED, AND WHAT TAKES PLACE BETWEEN HIM AND MRS. SWIGGS.

Reader! have you ever witnessed how cleverly one of our mob-politicians
can, through the all-soothing medium of a mint-julep, transpose himself
from a mass of passion and bad English into a child of perfect
equanimity? If not, perhaps you have witnessed in our halls of Congress
the sudden transition through which some of our Carolina members pass
from a state of stupidity to a state of pugnacity? (We refer only to
those members who do their own "stumping," and as a natural consequence,
get into Congress through abuse of the North, bad whiskey, and a
profusion of promises to dissolve the Union.) And if you have, you may
form some idea of the suddenness with which Lady Swiggs, as she delights
in having her friends call her, transposes herself from the incarnation
of a viper into a creature of ge