ter I had vetoed the
singin' that good man proposed that he should speak a piece. Sez he,
"I could tell most the hull of the American Taxation."

And I sez, "I wouldn't harrer up the minds of the rich men on board
with thoughts of taxes," sez I, "when lots of 'em are goin' away to
get rid on 'em."

"Well," sez he, "I could tell the hull of Robert Kidd."

And I sez, "Well, I wouldn't harrer up their feelin's talkin' about
hullsale stealin'; they have enough of that to hum in the big
cities."

So gradual I got him off from the idee.

There wuz one little boy about Tommy's age and a sister a little older
I felt real sorry for, they looked so queer, and their ma, a thin,
wirey, nervous lookin' woman brooded over 'em like a settin' hen over
her eggs. They wuz dressed well, but dretful bulged out and swollen
lookin', and I sez to their ma one day:

"Are your children dropsical?"

And she sez, "Oh, no, their health is good. The swellin's you see are
life preservers." She said that she kep' one on their stomachs night
and day.

Well, I knew that they would be handy in a shipwreck, but it made 'em
look queer, queer as a dog.

And now whilst the passengers are all settin' or standin' on their own
forts and tendin' to their own bizness, and the big ship ploughin' its
big liquid furrow on the water I may as well tell what Arvilly went
through. I spoze the reader is anxious to know the petickulers of how
she come to be in the Cuban army and desert from it. The reason of her
bein' in the army at all, her husband enlisted durin' the struggle for
Cuban independence, and Arvilly jest worshippin' the ground he walked
on, and thinkin' the world wuz a blank to her where he wuz not, after
the last care he left her wuz removed, and always havin' done as she
wuz a mind to as fur as she could, she dressed herself up in a suit of
his clothes and enlisted onbeknown to him, so's to be near to him if
he got woonded, and 'tennyrate to breathe the same air he did and
sleep under the same stars. She adored him.

It must be remembered that Arvilly had never loved a single thing till
she fell in love with this man, her folks dyin' off and leavin' her to
come up the best she could, and imposed upon and looked down upon on
every side, and workin' hard for a livin', and after she got old
enough to read and understand, bein' smart as a whip and one of the
firmest lovers of justice and fair play that ever wuz born, she become
such a firm belie