"I call him a bad neighbour who never remains long enough in a place to love any thing but himself. Now, sir, I have a feeling for every pebble on the shore of this lake, a sympathy with every wave,"--here the commodore began to twirl his hand about, with the fingers standing apart, like so many spikes in a _che-vaux-de-frise_--"and each hour, as I row across it, I find I like it better; and yet, sir, would you believe me, I often go away of a morning to pass the day on the water, and, on returning home at night, find half the houses filled with new faces." "What becomes of the old ones?" demanded Captain Truck; for this, it struck him, was getting the better of him with his own weapons. "Do you mean that the people come and go like the tides?" "Exactly so, sir; just as it used to be with the herrings in the Otsego, before the. Susquehannah was dammed, and is still, with the swallows." "Well, well, my good friend, take consolation. You'll meet all the faces you ever saw here, one day in heaven." "Never; not a man of them will stay there, if there be such a thing as moving. Depend on it, sir," added the commodore, in the simplicity of his heart, "heaven is no place for a Yankee, if he can get farther west, by hook or by crook. They are all too uneasy for any steady occupation. You, who are a navigator, must know something concerning the stars; is there such a thing as another world, that lies west of this?" "That can hardly be, commodore, since the points of the compass only refer to objects on this earth. You know, I suppose, that a man starting from this spot, and travelling due west, would arrive, in time, at this very point, coming in from the east; so that what is west to us, in the heavens, on this side of the world, is east to those on the other." "This I confess I did not know, general. I have understood that what is good in one man's eyes, will be bad in another's; but never before have I heard that what is west to one man, lies east to another. I am afraid, general, that there is a little of the sogdollager bait in this?" "Not enough, sir, to catch the merest fresh-water gudgeon that swims. No, no; there is neither east nor west off the earth, nor any up and down; and so we Yankees must try and content ourselves with heaven. Now, commodore, hand me the bowl, and we will get it ready down to the shore, and offer the ladies our homage. And so you have become a laker in your religion, my dear commodore," continued the general, between his teeth, while he smoked and squeezed a lemon at the same time, "and do your worshipping on the water?" "Altogether of late, and more especially since my dream." "Dream! My dear sir, I should think you altogether too innocent a man to dream." "The best of us have our failings, general. I do sometimes dream, I own, as well as the greatest sinner of them all." "And of what did you dream--the sogdollager?" "I dreamt of death."