the River, and turning his red quizzical face towards the ladies, he
observed with inimitable gravity,

"There is nothing like understanding when one has enough, even if it be of
knowledge. I never yet met with the navigator who found two 'noons' in the
same day, that he was not in danger of shipwreck. Now I dare say, Mr.
Dodge there, who has just gone below, has, as he says, seen all he
_warnts_ to see, and it is quite likely he knows more already than he can
cleverly get along with.--Let the people be getting the booms on the
yards, Mr. Leach; we shall be _warnting_ to spread our wings before the
end of the passage."

As Captain Truck, though he often swore, seldom laughed, his mate gave the
necessary order with a gravity equal to that with which it had been
delivered to him; and even the sailors went aloft to execute it with
greater alacrity for an indulgence of humour that was peculiar to their
trade, and which, as few understood it so well, none enjoyed so much as
themselves. As the homeward-bound crew was the same as the outward-bound,
and Mr. Dodge had come abroad quite as green as he was now going home
ripe, this traveller of six months' finish did not escape diver
commentaries that literally cut him up "from clew to ear-ring," and which
flew about in the rigging much as active birds flutter from branch to
branch in a tree. The subject of all this wit, however, remained
profoundly, not to say happily, ignorant of the sensation he had produced,
being occupied in disposing of the Dresden pipe, the Venetian chain, and
the Roman _conchiglia_ in his state-room, and in "instituting an
acquaintance," as he expressed it, with his room-mate, Sir George
Templemore.

"We must surely have something better than this," observed Mr. Effingham,