“Exactly,” rejoined Tom; “it meant her figure-head, old gentleman; but my yarn won’t cut a figure if I’m brought up all standing in this way. Suppose, master, you hear the story first, and understand it a’terwards?”
“I will endeavour to comprehend by the context,” replied the Dominie.
“That is, I suppose, that you’ll allow me to stick to my text. Well, then, here’s coil away again. Ben, you see, what with his jealousy and what with a whole quartern at a draught, became somehow nohow, and he walked down to the jetty with the intention of getting rid of himself, and his wife and all his trouble by giving his soul back to his Creator, and his body to the fishes.”
“Bad philosophy,” quoth the Dominie.
“I agree with you, master,” replied old Tom.
“Pray what sort of a thing is philosophy?” inquired Tom.
“Philosophy,” replied old Tom, “is either hanging, drowning, shooting yourself, or, in short, getting out of the world without help.”
“Nay,” replied the Dominie, “that is felo de se.”
“Well, I pronounce it quicker than you, master; but it’s one and the same thing: but to go on. While Ben was standing on the jetty, thinking whether he should take one more quid of ’baccy afore he dived, who should come down but Poll, with her hair all adrift, streaming and coach-whipping astern of her, with the same intention as Ben—to commit philo-zoffy. Ben, who was standing at the edge of the jetty, his eyes fixed upon the water, as it eddied among the piles, looking as dismal as if he had swallowed a hearse and six, with the funeral feathers hanging out of his mouth—”
“A bold comparison,” murmured the Dominie.