"Well," said Mara, "my enchanter was a king; and when he got through all he wanted, and got his daughter married to the beautiful young prince, he said he would break his staff, and deeper than plummet sounded he would bury his book."
"It was pretty much the best thing he could do," said the Captain, "because the Bible is agin such things."
"Is it?" said Mara; "why, he was a real good man."
"Oh, well, you know, we all on us does what ain't quite right sometimes, when we gets pushed up," said the Captain, who now began arranging the clams and sliced potatoes in alternate layers with sea-biscuit, strewing in salt and pepper as he went on; and, in a few moments, a smell, fragrant to hungry senses, began to steam upward, and Sally began washing and preparing some mammoth clam-shells, to serve as ladles and plates for the future chowder.
Mara, who sat with her morsel of a book in her lap, seemed deeply pondering the past conversation. At last she said, "What did you mean by saying you'd seen 'em act that at a theatre?"
"Why, they make it all seem real; and they have a shipwreck, and you see it all jist right afore your eyes."
"And the Enchanter, and Ariel, and Caliban, and all?" said Mara.
"Yes, all on't,—plain as printing."
"Why, that is by magic, ain't it?" said Mara.
"No; they hes ways to jist make it up; but,"—added the Captain, "Sally, you needn't say nothin' to your ma 'bout the theatre, 'cause she wouldn't think I's fit to go to meetin' for six months arter, if she heard on't."