shab the measure. I do wish you could see that refrigerator, oncet.
Never been much at sea, have you, mate?"

Lemuel said he had never been at sea at all.

The other leaned forward with his elbows on each side of his bowl,
and lazily broke his hard-tack into it. "Well, I have. I was shipped
when I was about eleven years old by a shark that got me drunk. I
wanted to ship, but I wanted to ship on an American vessel for New
Orleans. First thing I knowed I turned up on a Swedish brig bound
for Venice. Ever been to It'ly?"

"No," said Lemuel.

"Well, I hain't but oncet. Oncet is enough for _me_. I run
away, while I was in Venice, and went ashore--if you can call it
ashore; it's all water, and you got to go round in boats: gondolas
they call 'em there--and went to see the American counsul, and told
him I was an American boy, and tried to get him to get me off. But
he couldn't do anything. If you ship under the Swedish flag you're a
Swede, and the whole United States couldn't get you off. If I'd 'a'
shipped under the American flag I'd 'a' been an American, I don't
care if I was born in Hottentot. That's what the counsul said. I
never want to see that town ag'in. I used to hear songs about
Venice--'Beautiful Venice, Bride of the Sea;' but I think it's a
kind of a hole of a place. Well, what I started to say was that when
I turn up in Boston, now,--and I most generally do,--I don't go to
no sailor boardin'-house; I break for the Wayfarer's Lodge, every
time. It's a temperance house, and they give you the worth o' your
money."