"Thank you."
"I wouldn't listen to all a fool knew before breakfast; and it would take you two years to tell all you know, sweet cousin."
"Not so long as that. We made the land about six this morning, in a fog----"
"You made the land! Well, you didn't have a very bad job of it, for it is nothing but house sand. Of course I know we are somewhere on the coast of Florida, for when we left the Bermudas we were bound to St. Augustine. We have got there, you say; and I thank you for telling me. After breakfast, when I have a cigar, I will, with your leave, read the history of the place."
"You have my permission; and I will furnish the book from which you may read it."
"Thanks. Now, could you, Alick, without straining yourself too much, tell me something about what we may see by looking about us in just this place--never mind the other parts of the State," continued Owen, looking around him.
"I will tell you all I know about it," I replied.
"I wish everybody would tell only that."
"The opening you see on the other side of the bay, and through which we came in from sea, is between Anastasia Island on the south, and the main land on the north. The water to the north and south of us, inside the land, is Matanzas River. The works you see to the north is Fort Marion. The sea-wall extends from that to the point, south of us, a mile: it is built of coquina, a kind of rock quarried on Anastasia Island, formed of sand and shells----"
"Spare me, cousin!"