Chapter 31 - Page 2

sea. I don't think his own friends could have
interred him more efficaciously, or more piously, had he been on shore."

"It is something, Mr. Saunders, to be able to reflect beforehand on the
respectable funeral that your friends have just given you. There is a
great gratification to contemplate on such an ewent."

"You improve in language, Toast, that I will allow; but you sometimes get
the words a little wrong. We suspect before a thing recurs, and reflect on
it after it has ewentuated. You might have suspected the death of poor Mr.
Monday after he was wounded, and reflected on it after he was interred in
the water. I agree with you that it is consoling to know we have our
funeral rights properly delineated. Talking of the battle, Mr. Toast, I
shall take this occasion to express to you the high opinion I entertain of
your own good conduct. I was a little afraid you might injure Captain
Truck in the conflict; but, so far as I have ascertained, on close
inwestigation, you hurt nobody. We coloured people have some prejudices
against us, and I always rejoice when I meet with one who assists to put
them down by his conduck."

"They say Mr. Dodge didn't do much harm, either," returned Toast. "For my
part I saw nothing of him after I opened my eyes; though I don't think I
ever stared about me so much in my life."

Saunders laid a finger on his nose, and shook his head significantly.

"You may speak to me with confidence and mistrust, Toast," he said, "for
we are friends of the same colour, besides being officers in the same
pantry. Has Mr. Dodge conwersed with you concerning the ewents of those
two or three werry ewentful days?"

"He has insinevated considerable, Mr. Saunders; though I do not think Mr.
Dodge is ever a werry free talker."

"Has he surgested the propriety of having an account of he whole affair
made out by the people, and sustained by affidavits?"

"Well, sir, I imagine he has. At all ewents, he has been much on the
forecastle lately, endeavouring to persuade the people that _they_ retook
the ship, and that the passengers were so many encumbrancers in
the affair."

"And, are the people such _non composses_ as to believe him, Toast?"

"Why, sir, it is agreeable to humanity to think well of ourselves. I do
not say that anybody actually _believes_ this; but, in my poor judgment,
Mr. Saunders, there are men in the ship that would find it _pleasant_ to
believe it, if they could."

"Werry true; for that is natural. Your hint, Toast, has enlightened my
mind on a little obscurity that has lately prewailed over my conceptions.
There are Johnson,