"You would soonest be rid of the last, my dear general, and my advice is to take her."
"Old as she is, sir, a king would have to plead hard to get her consent. We will make them some punch, that they may see we were mindful of them in their absence."
To work these worthies now went in earnest, in order to anticipate the arrival of the party, and as the different compounds were in the course of mingling, the conversation did not flag. By this time both the salt-water and the fresh-water sailor were in that condition when men are apt to think aloud, and the commodore had lost all his awe of his companion.
"My dear sir," said the former, "I am a thousand times sorry you came from that river, for, to tell you my mind without any concealment, my only objection to you is that you are not of the middle states. I admit the good qualities of the Yankees, in a general way, and yet they are the very worst neighbours that a man can have."
"This is a new character of them, commodore, as they generally pass for the best, in their own eyes. I should like to hear you explain your meaning."
"I call him a bad neighbour who never remains long enough in a place to love any thing but himself. Now, sir, I have a feeling for every pebble on the shore of this lake, a sympathy with every wave,"--here the commodore began to twirl his hand about, with the fingers standing apart, like so many spikes in a che-vaux-de-frise--"and each hour, as I row across it, I find I like it better; and yet, sir, would you believe me, I often go away of a morning to pass the day on the water, and, on returning home at night, find half the houses filled with new faces."
"What becomes of the old ones?" demanded Captain Truck; for this, it struck him, was getting the better of him with his own weapons. "Do you mean that the people come and go like the tides?"
"Exactly so, sir; just as it used to be with the herrings in the Otsego, before the. Susquehannah was dammed, and is still, with the swallows."
"Well, well, my good friend, take consolation. You'll meet all the faces you ever saw here, one day in heaven."
"Never; not a man of them will stay there, if there be such a thing as moving. Depend on it, sir," added the commodore, in the simplicity of his heart, "heaven is no place for a Yankee, if he can get farther west, by hook or by crook. They are all too uneasy for any steady occupation. You, who are a navigator, must know something concerning the stars; is there such a thing as another world, that lies west of this?"