"Oh, you only fancy that, uncle, because you have spent so long a time at sea."
"No, I don't imagine it, you rascal. What can you have on shore equal to what we have at sea? Why, the sights that come before us would make you landsmen's hairs stand up on end, and never come down again."
"In the ocean, do you mean, that you see those sights, uncle?"
"To be sure. I was once in the southern ocean, in a small frigate, looking out for a seventy-four we were to join company with, when a man at the mast-head sung out that he saw her on the larboard bow. Well, we thought it was all right enough, and made away that quarter, when what do you think it turned out to be?"
"I really cannot say."
"The head of a fish."
"A fish!"
"Yes! a d——d deal bigger than the hull of a vessel. He was swimming along with his head just what I dare say he considered a shaving or so out of the water."
"But where were the sails, uncle?"
"The sails?"