Yes, I then got on board of one of
our sloops, and tried my hand at settling the account with my old
masters. I was taken prisoner for my pains, but worried through the
war without getting my neck stretched. They wanted to make it out, on
board the old Jarsey, that I was an Englishman, but I told 'em just to
prove it. Let 'em only prove where I was born, I said, and I would
give it up. I was ready to be hanged, if they could only prove where I
was born. D----, but I sometimes thought I never _was_ born, at
all."
"You are surely an American, Marble? A Manhattanese, born and
educated?"
"Why, as it is not likely any person would import a child a week old,
to plant it on a tombstone, I conclude I am. Yes, I must be
_that_; and I have sometimes thought of laying claim to the
property of Trinity Church, on the strength of my birth-right. Well,
as soon as the war was over, and I got out of prison, and that was
shortly after you were born, Captain Wallingford, I went to work
regularly, and have been ever since sarving as dickey, or chief-mate,
on board of some craft or other. If I had no family bosom to go into,
as a resting-place, I had my bosom to fill with solid beef and pork,
and that is not to be done by idleness."
"And, all this time, my good friend, you have been living, as it might
be, alone in the world, without a relative of any sort?"
"As sure as you are there.
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