Well, the best of us are but frail, and the longest-winded man is no dolphin to swim with his head under water!" "Pray, Mr.Poke, permit me to ask where you learned to speak the English language with so much purity ?" "Stunin'tun--I never had a mouthful of schooling but what I got at home.

It's all homespun.

I make no boast of scholarship; but as for navigating, or for finding my way about the 'arth, I'll turn my back on no man, unless it be to leave him behind.

Now we have people with us that think a great deal of their geometry and astronomies, but I hold to no such slender threads.

My way is, when there is occasion to go anywhere, to settle it well in my mind as to the place, and then to make as straight a wake as natur' will allow, taking little account of charts, which are as apt to put you wrong as right; and when they do get you into a scrape it's a smasher! Depend on yourself and human natur', is my rule; though I admit there is some accommodation in a compass, particularly in cold weather." "Cold weather! I do not well comprehend the distinction." "Why, I rather conclude that one's scent gets to be dullish in a frost; but this may be no more than a conceit after all, for the two times I've been wrecked were in summer, and both the accidents happened by sheer dint of hard blowing, and in broad daylight, when nothing human short of a change of wind could have saved us." "And you prefer this peculiar sort of navigation ?" "To all others, especially in the sealing business, which is my raal occupation.