a free-agent, she'll blow up, sure, jest to git out o'
sin an' misery. But ef so be she's bonyfihd predestined, she'll hev to
travel in the vale o' puhbation a spell longer, 'cause her cup a'n't
full yit, not by a long chalk. S'posin' she doos start out mellifloous,
what then? Don't imagine, my feller-sinners, that the danger's all
over,--no, it's only jest begun. Things ahead 's a good deal wuss. Steam
's pooty bad, but 't a'n't a circumstahnce to the blamed grease. 'T's
the grease that doos the mischief, an' plays the dickens with human
natur'. Down in th' army, they say, biscuits kills more'n bullets; an'
it's gospil truth, every word on 't, perticklerly ef the biscuits is
hot, an' pooty wal fried up in grease. Fryin' 's the great mortal sin,
the parient of all misery. The hull world's full of it, but the sea 's a
master sight fuller 'n the land. Somehow 'nother, grease takes kind o'
easy to salt water,--sailors wun't hev nothin' but a fry. Jest you give
'em plenty o' fat, an' they wun't ask no favors o' nobody. These 'ere
puhpellers 's the wust sinners of 'em all, an' somehow hev a good deal
more 'n their own share o' fat. They kind o' borrer from mackerellers
an' side-wheelers both together, an' mix 't all up 't oncet. My friends,
ef you a'n't desput anxious to see glory from this 'ere deck, be
virtoous, an' observe the golden rule: Don't tech, don't g' nigh the
p'is'n upus-tree of gravy; beware o' the dorg called hot biscuits; take
keer o' the grease, an' the stomach'll take keer of itself. Fact is, my
beloved brethren, I've ben a fust-chop dyspeptic for the best part o' my
life, an' I'm pooty wal posted in what I'm talkin' about. What I don't
know on this 'ere subjick a'n't wuth knowin'."

III.--RECITATIVE

How much farther the Martyr's appeal might have gone can never be known,
as the height of his great argument was cut short at this point by the
appearance of the Pontifex Maximus in person on the stage of action. The
fated victims were to be made ready for the coming sacrifice. The
oracle, it seems, had declared that Neptune would not smile, unless two
were cribbed together in one pen,--that the arrangement of these pairs
should be left with the lot of the bean,--and that as the beans went, so
must go the victims. Inexorable Fate would allow no reversal of her
decrees. Soon the beans were rattling in the hat of the Pontifex, and,
_mirabile!_ pen No. 1 fell to Duespeptos and his Satellite elect.

The immed