"Taxes on tobacco! Sir, I never heard of such an act of oppression under the forms of law! What has tobacco done, that any one should think of taxing it?"
"I believe, commodore, that its greatest offence is being so general a favourite. Taxation, I have found, differs from most other things, generally attacking that which men most prize."
"This is quite new to me, general; a tax on tobacco. The law-makers in those countries cannot chew. I drink to your good health, sir, and to many happy returns of such banquets as this."
Here the commodore raised a large silver punch-bowl, which Pierre had furnished, to his lips, and fastening his eyes on the boughs of a knarled oak, he looked like a man who was taking an observation, for near a minute. All this time, the captain regarded him with a sympathetic pleasure, and when the bowl was free, he imitated the example, levelling his own eye at a cloud, that seemed floating at an angle of forty-five degrees above him, expressly for that purpose.
"There is a lazy cloud!" exclaimed the general, as he let go his hold to catch breath; "I have been watching it some time, and it has not moved an inch."
"Tobacco!" repeated the commodore, drawing a long breath, as if he was just recovering the play of his lungs, "I should as soon think of laying a tax on punch. The country that pursues such a policy must, sooner or later, meet with a downfall. I never knew good come of persecution."
"I find you are a sensible man, commodore, and regret I did not make your acquaintance earlier in life. Have you yet made up your mind on the subject of religious faith?"
"Why, my dear general, not to be nibbling like a sucker with a sore mouth, with a person of your liberality, I shall give you a plain history of my adventures, in the way of experiences, that you may judge for yourself. I was born an Episcopalian, if one can say so, but was converted to Presbyterianism at twenty. I stuck to this denomination about five years, when I thought I would try the Baptists, having got to be fond of the water, by this time. At thirty-two I fished a while with the Methodists; since which conversion, I have chosen to worship God pretty much by myself, out here on the lake."
"Do you consider it any harm, to hook a fish of a Sunday?"
"No more than it is to eat a fish of a Sunday. I go altogether by faith, in my religion, general, for they talked so much to me of the uselessness of works, that I've got to be very unparticular as to what I do. Your people who have been converted four or five times, are like so many pickerel, which strike at every hook."