tell you, chummies, you want to be fired OUT of a home and out of a town
to appreciate 'em! Not that I blame the old man; he and I was too
much alike to cruise in company. But Bayport I was born in, and in the
Bayport graveyard they can plant me when I'm ready for the scrap heap.
It's in the blood and--Why, see here! Don't I TALK like a Bayporter?"

"You sartin do!" replied Asaph emphatically.

"A body 'd think you'd been diggin' clams and pickin' cranberries in
Bassett's Holler all your life long, to hear you."

"You bet! Well, that's pride; that's what that is. I prided myself
on hangin' to the Bayport twang through thick and thin. Among all the
Spanish 'Carambas' and 'Madre de Dioses' it did me good to come out with
a good old Yankee 'darn' once in a while. Kept me feelin' like a white
man. Oh, I'm a Whittaker! _I_ know it. And I've got all the Whittaker
pig-headedness, I guess. And because the old man--bless his heart, I
say now--told me I shouldn't BE a Whittaker no more, nor live like a
Whittaker, I simply swore up and down I would be one and come back here,
when I'd made my pile, to heave anchor and stay one till I die. Maybe
that's foolishness, but it's me."

He puffed vigorously at the pipe which had taken the place of the
Snowflake cigar, and added:

"Take this old settin' room--why, here it is; see! Here's dad in his
chair and ma in hers, and, if you go back far enough, granddad in his,
just as you say, Bailey. And here's me, a little shaver, squattin' on
the floor by the stove, lookin' at the pictures in a heap of Godey's
Lady's Book. And says dad, 'Bos'n,' he says--he used to call me 'Bos'n'