"How much--how much do you want for that Nighthawk?" he asked,
stammering with eagerness. "'Taint wuth much, but--what--ten dollars?
I'll give ye three, and not a cent more."

But the Skipper put him aside with a wave of his hand.

"Another time, sir," he said; "at future interview I will make
arrangements with you, and hope to satisfy; at present I instruct these
ladies a little in life under the sea.

"Lady," he said, and it was observable that although he spoke to Mrs.
Isaac Cutter, his eyes rested on Lena, and on the boy John, who stood
behind her, "Nature of her abundance is very generous to the sea. Here
all fishes swim, great and small; but more! All things that on earth
find their place, of them you find a picture, copy, what you please to
call it, at the bottom of the sea. A few only are yet found by men, yet
strange things also have I seen. Not under the ocean do you think to
find violets growing, is it so? yet here you observe a handful of
violets, in colour as on a green bank, though without perfume, the
sunshine wanting in those places."

He drew from a box some of the exquisite little violet snail-shells, and
gave them to Lena, who cried out with delight, and instantly resolved to
have a pair of ear-rings made of them.

"The ladies are hungry?" the quiet voice went on. "They desire
breakfast? I offer them a poached egg, grown under the sea. The colour
and shape perfect; the water ladies eat them every morning, but with the
air they grow hard and lose their flavour. Thank you, madam! for thirty