rapidly as it came. I was all right now, "only a little shaky in my
timbers and a little blue about the gills," as Captain Truck remarked to
my mother, who, like myself, had been confined to the state-room during
the passage.

At Cape Cod the wind parted company with us without saying as much
as "Excuse me"; so we were nearly two days in making the run which in
favorable weather is usually accomplished in seven hours. That's what
the pilot said.

I was able to go about the ship now, and I lost no time in cultivating
the acquaintance of the sailor with the green-haired lady on his arm.
I found him in the forecastle--a sort of cellar in the front part of the
vessel. He was an agreeable sailor, as I had expected, and we became the
best of friends in five minutes.

He had been all over the world two or three times, and knew no end of
stories. According to his own account, he must have been shipwrecked
at least twice a year ever since his birth. He had served under Decatur
when that gallant officer peppered the Algerines and made them promise
not to sell their prisoners of war into slavery; he had worked a gun
at the bombardment of Vera Cruz in the Mexican War, and he had been on
Alexander Selkirk's Island more than once. There were very few things he
hadn't done in a seafaring way.

"I suppose, sir," I remarked, "that your name isn't Typhoon?"

"Why, Lord love ye, lad, my name's Benjamin Watson, of Nantucket. But
I'm a true blue Typhooner," he added, which increased my respect for
him; I don't know why, and I didn't know then whether Typhoon was the