Says I, “It’s the sensiblest heaven I’ve heard of yet, Sam, though it’s about as different from the one I was brought up on as a live princess is different from her own wax figger.”

Along in the first months I knocked around about the Kingdom, making friends and looking at the country, and finally settled down in a pretty likely region, to have a rest before taking another start.  I went on making acquaintances and gathering up information.  I had a good deal of talk with an old bald-headed angel by the name of Sandy McWilliams.  He was from somewhere in New Jersey.  I went about with him, considerable.  We used to lay around, warm afternoons, in the shade of a rock, on some meadow-ground that was pretty high and out of the marshy slush of his cranberry-farm, and there we used to talk about all kinds of things, and smoke pipes.  One day, says I—­

“About how old might you be, Sandy?”

“Seventy-two.”

“I judged so.  How long you been in heaven?”

“Twenty-seven years, come Christmas.”

“How old was you when you come up?”

“Why, seventy-two, of course.”

“You can’t mean it!”

“Why can’t I mean it?”

“Because, if you was seventy-two then, you are naturally ninety-nine now.”

“No, but I ain’t.  I stay the same age I was when I come.”

“Well,” says I, “come to think, there’s something just here that I want to ask about.  Down below, I always had an idea that in heaven we would all be young, and bright, and spry.”

“Well, you can be young if you want to.  You’ve only got to wish.”

“Well, then, why didn’t you wish?”

“I did.  They all do.  You’ll try it, some day, like enough; but you’ll get tired of the change pretty soon.”

“Why?”

“Well, I’ll tell you.  Now you’ve always been a sailor; did you ever try some other business?”

“Yes, I tried keeping grocery, once, up in the mines; but I couldn’t stand it; it was too dull—­no stir, no storm, no life about it; it was like being part dead and part alive, both at the same time.  I wanted to be one thing or t’other.  I shut up shop pretty quick and went to sea.”

“That’s it.  Grocery people like it, but you couldn’t.  You see you wasn’t used to it.  Well, I wasn’t used to being young, and I couldn’t seem to take any interest in it.  I was strong, and handsome, and had curly hair,—­yes, and wings, too!—­gay wings like a butterfly.  I went to picnics and dances and parties with the fellows, and tried to carry on and talk nonsense with the girls, but it wasn’t any use; I couldn’t take to it—­fact is, it was an awful bore.  What I wanted was early to bed and early to rise, and something to do; and when my work was done, I wanted to sit quiet, and smoke and think—­not tear around with a parcel of giddy young kids.  You can’t think what I suffered whilst I was young.”