TOM. Well, Jack, here goes. You know when we left the Alert we had plenty of rhino in our pockets. So I intended to steer straight for my native village, in the state of Pennsylvania, where I had left my old father and a sweet, dear little sister, three years before, to cheer their hearts with a sight of their sailor-boy, and to make them comfortable with the cash. Unfortunately, as I passed through Philadelphia, I went with some wild fellows to the theatre--to so many the gateway to hell--and having grog enough aboard to make me pretty crank and foolish, I soon found myself in the third tier among the painted fire-ships; and as the proverb says, "When the wine is in, the wit is out," so I was led as the simple one of Scripture, "like an ox to the slaughter." Truly, Jack, "her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death." The consequences you may readily imagine. I was made to drink until I was quite insensible; was robbed of all my money, and then turned out of doors into the cold street. When I came to myself it was nearly sunrise, and I could not imagine how I had got there. My head swam, my bones ached, and I felt as if it was "blue Monday" with me. I staggered off not knowing where I was or whither I went, for half an hour or more, when I sat down on a flight of steps, and fell asleep. When I awoke, all the horrors of my situation rushed upon my mind; and O, Jack, I felt the raging hell in my bosom that you did when Hardheart first shipped you off. How sunk and degraded in my own eyes. I determined, however, upon going home, as the distance was short--only fifteen miles--and a bitter journey it was, Jack. I thought on my madness and folly, and wondered, with the poor ignorant Indian, why people would put an enemy into their mouths to steal away their brains. Instead of going to meet my dear father and sweet little sister with a joyous face and a pocket full of money, with which to make their hearts sing for joy, I was returning, like the prodigal son, from feeding upon husks with swine--poor, and with a heavy heart and a gnawing conscience. O the hell, Jack, of a bad conscience. It is the beginning of the existence of the worm that never dies, and of the fire that is never quenched. It is a foretaste of that eternal hell prepared for those who persist in violating God's holy laws. Well, I reached home at last, and a sad home I found it. The sand of my dear father's glass was almost run out--the poor old man was about slipping his cable. But O, Jack, how happy he looked; and so calm and resigned to the will of his heavenly Father, as he said--ready to set sail on the great voyage of eternity, or to stay and weather more of the rough gales of adversity in this life, just as God pleased. He held out his thin, white hand to me, and welcomed his boy, and thanked the Lord that he had given him a sight of me before his eyes were scaled in death. My poor sister hung weeping on my neck.