"I s'pose this 'ere group 's all insured, everythin' right an' tight an' all square up t' the hub. Suthin' hahnsum for the widders an' orphans. These little nest-eggs allers sort o' handy,--grease the ways, an' slick things up ship-shape. Survivors bless the rod, an' fix up everythin' round the house in apple-pie order. I hev known men that was so te'ble pertickler allers to save the Company, that nuthin' ever did, n' ever could happen. An' the despairin' friends kep' waitin' an' waitin', but 't was no sort o' use; they never got a red. 'T's wut I call bein' desput keerful, an' sailin' pooty consid'able close to the wind. 'T's like old Deacon Skillins's hoss, down to Mudville, that was so dreffle conscientious he couldn't eat oats. No accountin' for tastes. Free country, anyhow. Ef anybody likes to be fussy an' ructious 'n little things, why, there's nuthin' to hender him from hevin' his own way. But it don't exackly hev an hon'able look to common-sense folks. "Ef the clipper's a free-agent, she'll blow up, sure, jest to git out o' sin an' misery. But ef so be she's bonyfihd predestined, she'll hev to travel in the vale o' puhbation a spell longer, 'cause her cup a'n't full yit, not by a long chalk. S'posin' she doos start out mellifloous, what then? Don't imagine, my feller-sinners, that the danger's all over,--no, it's only jest begun. Things ahead 's a good deal wuss. Steam 's pooty bad, but 't a'n't a circumstahnce to the blamed grease. 'T's the grease that doos the mischief, an' plays the dickens with human natur'. Down in th' army, they say, biscuits kills more'n bullets; an' it's gospil truth, every word on 't, perticklerly ef the biscuits is hot, an' pooty wal fried up in grease. Fryin' 's the great mortal sin, the parient of all misery. The hull world's full of it, but the sea 's a master sight fuller 'n the land. Somehow 'nother, grease takes kind o' easy to salt water,--sailors wun't hev nothin' but a fry. Jest you give 'em plenty o' fat, an' they wun't ask no favors o' nobody. These 'ere puhpellers 's the wust sinners of 'em all, an' somehow hev a good deal more 'n their own share o' fat. They kind o' borrer from mackerellers an' side-wheelers both together, an' mix 't all up 't oncet. My friends, ef you a'n't desput anxious to see glory from this 'ere deck, be virtoous, an' observe the golden rule: Don't tech, don't g' nigh the p'is'n upus-tree of gravy; beware o' the dorg called hot biscuits; take keer o' the grease, an' the stomach'll take keer of itself. Fact is, my beloved brethren, I've ben a fust-chop dyspeptic for the best part o' my life, an' I'm pooty wal posted in what I'm talkin' about. What I don't know on this 'ere subjick a'n't wuth knowin'." III.--RECITATIVE