“Robert, how big is a whale?” inquired my mother suddenly.
“How big? why, it’s as big as a small ship, only it’s longer, and not quite so fat.”
“Robert,” replied my mother gravely, “ye didn’t used to tell untruths; ye must be jokin’.”
“Joking, mother, I was never more in earnest in my life. Why, I tell you that I’ve seen, ay, and helped to cut up, whales that were more than sixty feet long, with heads so big that their mouths could have taken in a boat. Why, mother, I declare to you that you could put this room into a whale’s mouth, and you and Tom and I could sit round this table and take our tea upon his tongue quite comfortable. Isn’t that true, Tom?”
My mother looked at Tom, who removed his pipe, puffed a cloud of smoke, and nodded his head twice very decidedly.
“Moreover,” said I, “a whale is so big and strong, that it can knock a boat right up into the air, and break in the sides of a ship. One day a whale fell right on top of one of our boats and smashed it all to bits. Now that’s a real truth!”
Again my mother looked at Tom Lokins, and again that worthy man puffed an immense cloud of smoke, and nodded his head more decidedly than before. Being anxious to put to flight all her doubts at once, he said solemnly, “Old ooman, that’s a fact!”
“Robert,” said my mother, “tell me something about the whales.”
Just as she said this the door opened, and in came the good old gentleman with the nose like his cane-knob, and with as kind a heart as ever beat in a human breast. My mother had already told me that he came to see her regularly once a week, ever since I went to sea, except in summer, when he was away in the country, and that he had never allowed her to want for anything.
I need scarcely say that there was a hearty meeting between us three, and that we had much to say to each other. But in the midst of it all my mother turned to the old gentleman and said—