thinking that had come to me since I had met Captain Luke on South
Street, and we had gone into the saloon together to settle about the
passage he had offered me--that all of a sudden the thought struck me
that perhaps I had made the biggest kind of a fool of myself; and it
struck so hard that for a minute or two I fairly was dizzy and faint.

What earthly proof had I, beyond Captain Luke's bare word for it, that
there was such a brig as the _Golden Hind_? What proof had I
even--beyond the general look of him and his canvas pocket-book--that
Captain Luke was a sailor? And what proof had I, supposing that there
was such a brig and that he was a sailor, that the two had anything
to do with each other? I simply had accepted for truth all that he
told me, and on the strength of his mere assertion that he was a
ship-master and was about to sail for the West African coast I had
paid him my fifty dollars--and had taken by way of receipt for it no
more than a clinking of our glasses and a shake of his hand. I said
just now that I was only twenty-three years old, and more or less of a
promiscuously green young fool. I suppose that I might as well have
left that out. There are some things that tell themselves.

For three or four blocks, as I drove along, I was in such a rage with
myself that I could not think clearly. Then I began to cool a little,
and to hope that I had gone off the handle too suddenly and too far.
After all, there were some chances in my favor the other way. Captain
Chilton, I remembered, had told me that he was about to sail for West
Coast ports before I asked him for a passage; and had mentioned, also,
whereabouts on the anchorage the _Golden Hind_ was lying. Had he made
these statements after he knew what I wanted there would have been
some reason for doubting them; but being made on general principles,
without knowledge of what I was after, it seemed to me that they very