A body is always doing what he sees somebody else doing, though there mayn't be no sense in it.

Pretty soon I see a black something floating on the water away off to stabboard and quartering behind us.

I see he was looking at it, too.

I says-- '"What's that ?" He says, sort of pettish,-- '"Tain't nothing but an old empty bar'l." '"An empty bar'l!" says I, "why," says I, "a spy-glass is a fool to your eyes.

How can you tell it's an empty bar'l ?" He says-- '"I don't know; I reckon it ain't a bar'l, but I thought it might be," says he.
'"Yes," I says, "so it might be, and it might be anything else, too; a body can't tell nothing about it, such a distance as that," I says.
'We hadn't nothing else to do, so we kept on watching it.