In fact, one morning, I thought that such was the case, for bang! went the big cannon I had noticed in the bow of the ship when we came on board, and which had suggested to me the idea of Pirates.  Bang! went the gun again in a few seconds.  I made a feeble effort to get at my trousers-pocket!  But the Typhoon was only saluting Cape Cod—­the first land sighted by vessels approaching the coast from a southerly direction.

The vessel had ceased to roll, and my sea-sickness passed away as 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 name of a vegetable or a profession.

Not wishing to be outdone in frankness, I disclosed to him that my name was Tom Bailey, upon which he said he was very glad to hear it.

When we got more intimate, I discovered that Sailor Ben, as he wished me to call him, was a perfect walking picturebook.  He had two anchors, a star, and a frigate in full sail on his right arm; a pair of lovely blue hands clasped on his breast, and I’ve no doubt that other parts of his body were illustrated in the same agreeable manner.  I imagine he was fond of drawings, and took this means of gratifying his artistic taste.  It was certainly very ingenious and convenient.  A portfolio might be misplaced, or dropped overboard; but Sailor Ben had his pictures wherever he went, just as that eminent person in the poem,

“With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes”—­was accompanied by music on all occasions.