I could not help laughing at the strange manoeuvres of the creature, familiar as I was with them.

“It is only one of our Texan bugs, Jackson,” said I; “it is harmless enough.”

“It’s got a pesky look, though, Doctor!  I thought I’d seen enough curus creturs in the Marquesas, but that beats all!”

Seeing the insect really irritated and annoyed him, I put it out of the window, and turned the blinds closely to prevent its reentrance, and he went on with his story.

“So I tramped it to Hartford that night, got a lodgin’ with a first cousin I had there, worked my passage to Boston in a coaster, and after hangin’ about Long Wharf day in and day out for a week, I was driv’ to ship myself aboard of a whaler, the Lowisy Miles, Twist, cap’en; and I writ from there to Hetty, so’t she could know my bearin’s so fur, and tell my father.

“It would take a week, Doctor, to tell you what a rough-an’-tumble time I had on that ‘are whaler.  There’s a feller’s writ a book about v’yagin’ afore the mast that’ll give ye an idee on’t; he had an eddication so’t he could set it off, and I fell foul of his book down to Valparaiso more’n a year back, and I swear I wanted to shake hands with him.  I heerd he was gone ashore somewheres down to Boston, and hed cast anchor for good.  But I tell you he’s a brick, and what he said’s gospel truth.  I thought I’d got to hell afore my time when we see blue water.  I didn’t have no peace exceptin’ times when I was to the top, lookin’ out for spouters; then I’d get nigh about into the clouds that was allers a-hangin’ down close to the sea mornin’ and night, all kinds of colors, red an’ purple an’ white; and ‘stead of thinkin’ o’ whales, I’d get my head full o’ Simsbury, and get a precious knock with the butt end of a handspike when I come down, ’cause I’d never sighted a whale till arter they see’d it on deck.

“We was bound to the South Seas after sperm whales, but we was eight months gettin’ there, and we took sech as we could find on the way.  The cap’en he scooted round into one port an’ another arter his own business,—­down to Caraccas, into Rio; and when we’d rounded the Horn and was nigh about dead of cold an’ short rations, and hadn’t killed but three whales, we put into Valparaiso to get vittled, and there I laid hold o’ this little trinket of a chain, and spliced Hetty’s ring on to’t, lest I should be stranded somewheres and get rid of it onawares.

“We cruised about in them seas a good year or more, with poor luck, and the cap’en growin’ more and more outrageous continually.  Them waters aren’t like the Gulf, Doctor,—­nor like the Northern Ocean, nohow; there a’n’t no choppin’ seas there, but a great, long, everlasting lazy swell, that goes rollin’ and fallin’ away like the toll of a big bell, in endless blue rollers; and the trades blow through the sails like singin’, as warm and soft as if they blowed right out o’ sunshiny gardens; and the sky’s