prefer the outside relation to the inside intimacy. Ha,
ha, ha! I knew you'd laugh at that, you sly old rogue! What a very sly,
patient old shark you are! Don't you know that if you didn't have those
clumsy fins, and that dreadfully homely mouth away down somewhere on
the under side of your body, and eyes so grotesquely wide apart, and
should go on land and match your wit against the various and amusing
species of sharks which abound there, your patience in pursuing a
manifest advantage would make you a millionaire in a year? Can you get
that philosophy through your thick skull, my friend?

"There, there, there! Don't turn over like that and make a fool of
yourself by opening your pretty mouth and dazzling the midday sun with
the gleam of your white belly. I'm not ready yet. God! how thirsty I
am! Say, did you ever feel like that? Did you ever see blinding flashes
that tear through your brain and turn the sun black?

"You haven't answered my question yet. It's a hypothetical
question--yes, hypothetical. I'm sure that's what I want to say.
Hypo--hypothetical question. Question; yes, that's right. Now, suppose
you'd been a pretty wild young shark, and had kept your mother anxious
and miserable, and had drifted into gambling and had gone pretty well
to the dogs. Do sharks ever go to the dogs? Now, that's a poser.
Sharks; dogs. Oh, what a very ridiculously, sublimely amusing old
shark! Dreadfully discreet you are. Never disclose your hand except on
a showdown. What a glum old villain you are!

"Pretty well to the dogs, and then braced up and left home to make a
man of yourself. Think of a shark making a man of himself! And
then--easy there! Don't get excited. I only staggered that time and
didn't quite go overboard. And don't let my gesticulations excite you.
Keep your mouth shut, my friend; you're not pretty when you smile like
that. As I was saying--oh!...

"How long was I that way, old fellow? Good thing for me that you don't
know how to climb into a boat when a fellow is that way. Were you ever
that way, partner? Come on like this: Biff! Big blaze of red fire in
your head. Then--then--well, after awhile you come out of it, with the
queerest and crookedest of augers boring through your head, and a
million tadpoles of white fire darting in every direction through the
air. Don't ever get that way, my friend, if you can possibly keep out
of it. But then, you never get thirsty. Let me see. The sun was over
there when the