All has passed so quickly that I seem to have dreamed it all, and to have woke now for the first time. He soon shows signs of life, under the active treatment he is receiving, and he has revived sufficiently to sit up and look about him before the question is asked, by the old man: "How did he fall overboard?" No one seems to know. Black Hawk answers that he heard the splash in the water, and a cry immediately after, and running to the side, saw a head bob up abreast the fore-chains, and gave the alarm. By this time, Farrell enlightens us himself, by pointing forward with his arm, gasping out the single word "Parrp'ses," then is taken with retching again, brings up another pint of sea-water, and can give no further information at present. I ran forward. The porpoise line (which was kept ready rove in tail-block on the bowsprit) was towering under the bow. I seized and rounded it in, and brought up the "iron," or rather the pole and socket thereof, the shank being broken off close up. It would seem that Farrell, having the lookout, and all the rest being comfortably snoozing, had discovered porpoises playing under the bow, and being in the humor for a lark, determined to strike one "on his own hook," without calling for reinforcements until after he was "fast." But neither his head nor his heels being very trustworthy at the time, he darted the iron in one direction from the martingale guy, and himself in another. The porpoise must have been struck most effectually, and while we were busily engaged in saving the man, he had writhed in his agony under the bows, till he had wrung the shank of the iron off. "Well, Farrell, my boy," said Mr. Grafton, "how do you feel after your Baptism?" "Well, sir, I feel pretty well bothered, but I'll warrant the parr'pus is nearer dead than I am." "Yes, you struck him solid, at any rate," said the mate. "An' sure, sir," returned Farrell, "don't you always stern all, sir, as soon as you're fast?" "Yes, that's according to rule; but circumstances may alter cases. It was a narrow squeak for you, at any rate. You'll be in no hurry to catch porpoises again in a dark night, alone." "Bad luck to the soaking I got?" said Farrell, as he went forward. "It's taken all the snap out o' me--and the schnapps too." Manifold were the jokes cracked at the young Irishman's expense, after this adventure; for with seamen, as with soldiers, a miss is as good as a mile, always, and that which is almost a tragedy becomes the very ideal of a farce.