sleep, but it was Captain Zeno's story, and it was one of the unwritten laws of the Upper House that no captain should tell another's story.

[Pg 13]

"So," said Captain Zeno,—he was a little walnut-faced man, with sharp black eyes, and a dry and rasping utterance,—"so they was makin' good sailin' with a fair wind, on the 18th day of October, when all of a suddent the lookout sung out—"

"Thar she blows!" broke in Captain Abram, in his piping treble.

"Where away?" responded Captain Silas Riggs, promptly.

"Weather bow!" said the old man, and fell silent again. All looked at Captain Zeno, who smiled appreciatively.

"Won'erful, aint it?" he said, meditatively. "He knows that pint, Cap'n Abram does, as well as I do. Wal, as I was sayin', they struck a school o' whales, on the weather bow, sure enough; sperms they was, and likely-lookin' fur as they could see. Three[Pg 14] boats put off, and my father, bein' mate at that time, had one of 'em. He sighted a sixty-barrel bull, and was pullin' for him for dear life, when an old cow come by with her calf, and when she saw the boat she dove, and one eend o' the fluke struck 'em amidships, and stove a hole in 'em. Wal! that kerwumpussed 'em, ye see! Nothin' for it but to pull back to the ship, and set to work on repairs. My father called the carpenters, and give 'em their job, an' then he looked after the school, and cussed a little, mebbe, for all he was a perfessor, to think he was losin' all the fun. All of a suddent he seed a whale leave the school, turn round, and make straight for the ship. He didn't think nothin' of it, 'cept he see 'twas the biggest bull his eyes had ever come across. Big? Wal!' Twas like a island, Father used to say. He'd heerd tell of two-hundred-and-thirty-barrel whales along back in the seventeens, and he calc'lated this might be one of 'em left over. He see the critter was comin' pooty nigh, and he sung out for a harpoon, thinkin' he might git a shy, after all; when, lo ye! that whale took a start an' come through the water like a shot out of a gun, and struck the ship just forrard of the forechains.

[Pg 14]

"Wal, sir, they was knocked consid'able eendways, I tell ye! Father was dumfoundered for a minute,[Pg 15] and the ship's crew with him, what with the surprise on't, and the everlastin' shakin' it giv 'em, too. But Father never let his wits go without a string tied to 'em, and in a minute he ordered all hands to the pumps, to see if she had sprung 

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