then he followed the ship all over the world waiting for this sailor to
fall off or get wrecked or something, till finally the hunted man got so
nervous he quit the sea and is now running a news stand in Seattle, if
Safety don't believe it. It just goes to show that a whale as long as
you're square with him is superior in mind and morals to a steer, which
ain't got sense enough to know friend from foe.

Safety still shakes his head. He says "safe and sane" has been his motto
throughout a long and busy life and this here proposition don't sound
like neither one to him. The boys tell him he's missing a good thing by
not throwing in with us. They say I'm giving 'em each a big block of
stock, paid up and non-assessable, and they don't want him to come round
later when they're rolling in wealth and ask why they didn't give him a
chance too.

"I can just hear you talk," said Sandy. "You'll be saying: 'I knew that
whole fool bunch when not one ever had a dollar he could call his own the
day after he was paid off, and now look at 'em--throwing their hundreds
of thousands right and left; houses with pianos in every room; new boots
every week; silver-mounted saddles at a thousand each; choice wines,
liquors, and cigars; private taxicabs; and Alexander J. Sawtelle, the
wealthy banker, being elected to Congress by an overwhelming majority!'
That's the way you'll be talking," said Sandy, "with regret eating into
your vitals like some horrible acid that is fatal to man and beast."

Safety says he thinks they're all plumb crazy, and a fool and his money
is soon parted--this being a saying he must have learned at the age of
three and has never forgotten a word of--and he comes up to the house to
see me. Mebbe he wanted to find out if I had really lost my mind, but he
said nothing about whales. Just set round and talked the usual hard luck.