carrying as regular a lubber as ever fell overboard, on your head and
shoulders, down to the bottom of the Hudson, no less than three times! I
consider you to be the only man living who ever sank his three times, and
came up to tell of it, with his own tongue."

"I am not at all conscious of having said one word about it, Moses," I
retorted, a little drily.

"Every motion, every glance of your eye, boy, tells the story. No;
Providence intends you for something remarkable, you may rely on _that_.
One of these days you may go to Congress--who knows?"

"By the same rule, you are to be included, then; for in most of my
adventures you have been a sharer, besides having quantities that are
exclusively your own. Remember, you have even been a hermit."

"Hu-s-h--not a syllable about it, or the children would run after me as a
sight. You must have generalized in a remarkable way, Miles, after you
sunk the last time, without much hope of coming up again?"

"Indeed, my friend, you are quite right in your conjecture. So near a view
of death is apt to make us all take rapid and wide views of the past. I
believe it even crossed my mind that _you_ would miss me sadly."

"Ay," returned Marble, with feeling; "them are the moments to bring out
the truth! Not a juster idee passed your brain than _that_, Master Miles,
I can assure you. Missed you! I would have bought a boat and started for
Marble Land, never again to quit it, the day after the funeral. But there
stands your cook, fidgeting and looking this way, as if she had a word to
put in on the occasion. This expl'ite of Neb's will set the niggers up in