insane desire to be the death of the glass ship, case, and all, in order
to come at the plunder; and one day, throwing out some hint of the kind
to my sisters, they ran to my mother in a great clamor; and after that,
the ship was placed on the mantel-piece for a time, beyond my reach, and
until I should recover my reason.

I do not know how to account for this temporary madness of mine, unless
it was, that I had been reading in a story-book about Captain Kidd's
ship, that lay somewhere at the bottom of the Hudson near the Highlands,
full of gold as it could be; and that a company of men were trying to
dive down and get the treasure out of the hold, which no one had ever
thought of doing before, though there she had lain for almost a hundred
years.

Not to speak of the tall masts, and yards, and rigging of this famous
ship, among whose mazes of spun-glass I used to rove in imagination,
till I grew dizzy at the main-truck, I will only make mention of the
people on board of her. They, too, were all of glass, as beautiful
little glass sailors as any body ever saw, with hats and shoes on, just
like living men, and curious blue jackets with a sort of ruffle round
the bottom. Four or five of these sailors were very nimble little chaps,
and were mounting up the rigging with very long strides; but for all
that, they never gained a single inch in the year, as I can take my
oath.

Another sailor was sitting astride of the spanker-boom, with his arms
over his head, but I never could find out what that was for; a second
was in the fore-top, with a coil of glass rigging over his shoulder; the
cook, with a glass ax, was splitting wood near the fore-hatch; the
steward, in a glass apron, was hurrying toward the cabin with a plate of