"As all large-brained races are," retorted the mate, while filling his clay pipe with tobacco.
"Well, what were you about to say?" asked Weston. "But first fill your glass and pass over the tobacco bag."
"I was simply about to reiterate that I don't believe in ghosts, or value them any more than I do the Yankee sea-serpent, a rope's end, or a piece of old junk; I never saw one, or knew a man who had seen one; but every one has heard of a man, that knew another man who saw, or believed he saw a ghost. It is at variance with the laws of nature, which are so ordered that no such erratic spirit can be."
"I don't know that," replied Weston; "earth and water have their inhabitants, so why not the air also?"
"And why not the fire?"
"There you go, right before the wind into the troubled sea of argument—you Scotchmen are all alike."
"Ghosts are at variance with the workings of Divine wisdom, and we all know what Jones of Nayland says thereupon."
"No we don't," said Weston; "who the deuce was he—what port did he hail from?"
"'He who cannot see the workings of a Divine wisdom in the order of the heavens, the change of the seasons, the flowing of the tides, the operations of the wind and other elements, the structure of the human body, the circulation of the blood, the instinct of beasts, and the growth of plants, is sottishly blind and unworthy the name of man.'"
"You hear him, Mr. Rodney," said Weston; "now he has got both his anchor and topsails a-trip; he can pay out whole speeches in this fashion, all at a breath, as fast as the chain-cable running through the hawse-pipe."