You wouldn't have me leave the anchor, I suppose?"

The man said he did not care about the anchor--he was just as God had
made him (he looked as if his cook had had something to do with it) and,
sink or swim, he purposed embarking in that ship. A good deal of
wrangling ensued, but one of the sailors finally threw the man a cork
life-preserver, and the captain said that would lighten him and he might
come abroad.

This was Captain Abersouth, formerly of the _Mudlark_--as good a seaman
as ever sat on the taffrail reading a three volume novel. Nothing could
equal this man's passion for literature. For every voyage he laid in so
many bales of novels that there was no stowage for the cargo. There were
novels in the hold, and novels between-decks, and novels in the saloon,
and in the passengers' beds.

The _Camel_ had been designed and built by her owner, an architect in
the City, and she looked about as much like a ship as Noah's Ark did.
She had bay windows and a veranda; a cornice and doors at the
water-line. These doors had knockers and servant's bells. There had been
a futile attempt at an area. The passenger saloon was on the upper deck,
and had a tile roof. To this humplike structure the ship owed her name.
Her designer had erected several churches--that of St. Ignotus is still
used as a brewery in Hotbath Meadows--and, possessed of the ecclesiastic
idea, had given the _Camel_ a transept; but, finding this impeded her
passage through the water, he had it removed. This weakened the vessel
amidships. The mainmast was something like a steeple. It had a
weathercock. From this spire the eye commanded one of the finest views
in England.