“The man at the wheel?’

“Ay, shipmet!  He saw the tiger comin’, for he turned as pale as death; but he didn’t look at him, and never stirred tack or sheet.  He stuck right on to the spokes, and steered her as true as a die; and well he did, for if he hadn’t, we’d a broached to in five seconds, and that would a been wuss than the tiger.  Well, the cussed beast went close up to him, and actually snuffed at him.  You may judge what a relief it was to us when he left him, at last, and come for’ard.  There was a sheep in the long-boat, and, as he was cruising about decks, he smelt it, and grabbed it, and was suckin’ its blood in a jiffy; so we managed to get a slip-knot over him, and hauled taut on it from aloft.  Then a young fellow went down with a line, and wound it round and round him, till he couldn’t stir, and at last, with a heap of trouble, we got him stowed in his cage again, sheep and all; for he never let go on it.’

“And what was done for the man at the wheel?’

“Well, sir, nothing; he was only doing his duty.”

‘That was too bad!  Now tell us another—­tell us some more about shows?’

’Shows, chickabiddy?  I’ve not seen any of late.  The last was the What-Is-It.’

‘Well, and what was it?’

’That is more than I can tell you.  The proprietor is constantly asking the question, and has even gone to the expense of repeatedly advertising.  I shouldn’t wonder if, by this time, he had gotten a satisfactory response.  I went and listened to the customary description.  The silence that ensued was broken by a miserable skeptic, whose ill-regulated aspirations betrayed his insular prejudice, ’Vot is it? arf hanimal, eh? t’other day, I stuck a pin into him, and ses he, ’Dam yez!’ Vot is it, eh?’

’Thus did this wretch, by implication, endeavor to unsettle the opinions of the audience, none too definite, perhaps, before.

’It is singular the distrust with which a thankless public has long come to regard the efforts of one whose aim it has ever been to combine instruction with amusement.  Do you remember an itinerant expedition sent forth, years ago, by the same grand purveyor?  There was a Car of Juggernaut, you may recollect, drawn by twenty little pigs of elephants.  That show I also attended, and was well repaid for going.  Near the entrance of the tent was a large cage, peopled with the gayest denizens of tropic life, macaws, cockatoos, paroquets—­what know I?—­a feathered iridescence, that sulked prehensile or perched paradisiacal in their iron house.  Two youths entered; one paused admiringly.  ’Come along, Jack,’ remonstrated the other, hurrying him on by the arm, ’them darned things is only painted.’  He wasn’t going to see his friend imposed upon and his admiration extorted under false pretenses.  Not if he knew it!  Mr. B——­ couldn’t do him!

’Painted!  Ay, Jonathan—­and if Church or Kensett, look you, could only get at those pigments! could find the oil-and-color men that filled that order! ah me! what opaline skies! what amethystine day-breaks! what incarnadine sunsets we should have!  The palette for that work was laid by angels, from tubes long hidden in the choicest crypts of the vast elaboratory, and those transcendent tints.