“I know that well enough; but an amphibby, as I understand it, is a new sort of whale, that comes up to breathe, like all of that family, as old Dr. Mitchell, of Cow Neck, calls the critturs.  So the furrin officers thought we must be of the amphibby family, to live so much under water, as it seemed to them.  It was wet work, I can tell you, boys; I don’t think I got a good breath more than once an hour, the whull of the first day we was out.  One of the furrin officers asked our captain how the gun-boat steered.  He wasn’t a captain, at all—­only a master, you see, and we all called him Jumpin’ Billy.  So Jumpin’ Billy says, ‘Don’t know, sir.’  ’What! crossed the Atlantic in her, and don’t know how your craft steers!’ says the furrin officer, says he—­and well he might, Jim, since nothin’ that ever lived could go from Norfolk to Gibraltar, without some attention to the helm—­but Jumpin’ Billy had another story to tell.  ’No, sir; don’t know,’ he answered.  ’You see, sir, a nor-wester took us right aft, as we cleared the capes, and down she dove, with her nose under and her starn out, and she come across without having a chance to try the rudder.’”

This story, which Joe had told at least a hundred times before, and which, by the way, is said to be true, produced the usual admiration, especially among the crowd of lega-tees-expectant, to most of whom it was quite new.  When the laugh went out, which it soon did of itself, Joe pursued a subject that was of more interest to most of his auditors, or rather to the principal personages among them.

“Skins never brought a craft so low, that you may be sartain of!” he resumed.  “I’ve seed all sorts of vessels stowed, but a hundred press-screws couldn’t cram in furs enough to bring a craft so low!  To my eye, Jim, there’s suthin’ unnat’ral about that schooner, a’ter all.”

The study is scarce worthy of a diploma, but we will take this occasion to say, for the benefit of certain foreign writers, principally of the female sex, who fancy they represent Americanisms, that the vulgar of the great republic, and it is admitted there are enough of the class, never say “summat” or “somethink,” which are low English, but not low American, dialect.  The in-and-in Yankee says “suth-in.”  In a hundred other words have these ambitious ladies done injustice to our vulgar, who are not vulgar, according to the laws of Cockayne, in the smallest degree. “The Broadway,” for instance, is no more used by an American than “the Congress,” or “the United States of North America.”

“Perhaps,” answered Jim, “’tisn’t the Sea Lion, a’ter all.  There’s a family look about all the craft some men build, and this may be a sort of relation of our missin’ schooner.”

“I’ll not answer for the craft, though that’s her blue peter, and them’s her mast-heads, and I turned in that taw-sail halyard-block with my own hands.—­I’ll tell you what, Jim, there’s been a wrack, or a nip, up yonder, among the ice, and this schooner has been built anew out of that there schooner You see if it don’t turn out as I tell you.  Ay, and there’s Captain Gar’ner, himself, alive and well, just comin’ forrard.”