"He wrote plays, you know," he added, seeing that Captain Brown did not quite comprehend him.
"Oh, I rec'lect now," replied the skipper, understanding him at last, and his face beaming with curious intelligence.

"Him as wrote a piece called `Hamlet,' hey?
I reckon I see it once when I wer to Boston some years ago, an' Booth acted it uncommon well, too, yes, sirree!" "Well then," said Fritz, going on to explain the reason for his original remark, "Shakespeare exactly expresses my sentiments, at this present moment, in the words which he puts into the mouth of one of his characters in the `Tempest,' Gonzalo, I think.

`Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze, anything: the wills above be done, but I would fain die a dry death!'" The young fellow laughed as he ended the apt quotation.
The skipper, however, did not appear to see the matter in the same light.
"I guess thet there Gonzalo," he remarked indignantly, "wer no sailor; an' Mister Shakespeare must hev hed a durned pain in his stummick when he writ sich trash!" Some hours afterwards, fortunately for Fritz's feelings, the gale broke; when, the wind shifting round to the northward of west, the _Pilot's Bride_ was enabled to steer away from the South American coast and shape a straight course for Tristan d'Acunha..