''Not if I know it,' responded Dux, severely, 'he'd clear the decks in a minute! We had one aboard once before—a big rascal, in a cage, 'tween decks—and one dark, stormy night, he broke adrift and stowed himself away so snug that we never found him till next day. You may judge what a hurrah's nest there was, every body knowing this d——d bear was somewhere aboard, and afraid of running foul of him in the dark. No, no, better let him alone!'

'Howbeit, I over-persuaded him. We managed to get hold of a bit of chain fastened to his collar, bent a line on to it, gave him reasonable scope, belayed the bight, and knocked off one end of his box. Out he bolted! It was a change from that dark den to the glaring tropical sunshine, the blue sea foaming under the trades, the rolling masts, and the hundreds of curious eyes that surrounded him. Sensible to the last, he tried to go aloft, but the line soon brought him up. Down he came, and steered for'ard. The cooks and stewards, their hands on the combing, filled the fore-hatch. He made a dive for them, and they tumbled ignominiously down the hatchway. We laughed consumedly. Then he cruised aft, the dress-circle considerately widening. He came up to me, as if knowing his benefactor by instinct, looking curiously about him, and curling and retracting his flexile snout and lip, after the manner of his kind. Now, I had often dealt with bears, tame and semi-tame, had 'held Sackerson by the chain,' as often as Master Slender, had known them sometimes to strike or hug, (which they always do standing,) but had never known one to bite. So I didn't take the trouble to move, and—the first I knew—the villain had me by the leg!'

'Sarved yer right, for lettin' on him out,' interposed that grim utilist Jonas, our hired man. He had entered, pending the narrative, and stood, arrectis auribus, by the door.

'Mercy on us! didn't it hurt?'

'Yes; but not more than might easily be borne. It didn't seem like biting—more like the strong, hard grip of a vice than any thing else—puncture quite lost in constriction. My viznomy, I am told, was a study: supreme disgust, tempered with divine philosophy.'

'And how on earth did you get away from him?'

'By not trying to; kept as still as a mouse, till he had bitten all he wanted to, which took about a minute. Then he let go, and walked quietly off, to see if he couldn't bite somebody else. I afterward improved our acquaintance by giving him sugar-cane and a licking or two; but he was always an ill-conditioned brute, not amenable to reason, and when we came to New York, gave no end of trouble, by getting over the side and running up the North River on the ice—I dare say he scented the Catskills—the whole waterside whooping and hallooing in chase after him. Ah! I could tell you a better story than that, of a wild beast aboard a ship!'

'Do, then.'

'It was told me by an ancient mariner, who knows how many years ago? for I'm getting to be an old fellow myself, children.'

'What nonsense, Dick! talk about your being old.'