Chapter 11

PAUL JONES IN A REVERIE.

"'God helps them that help themselves.' That's a clincher. That's been
my experience. But I never saw it in words before. What pamphlet is
this? 'Poor Richard,' hey!"

Upon entering Israel's room, Captain Paul, stepping towards the table
and spying the open pamphlet there, had taken it up, his eye being
immediately attracted to the passage previously marked by our
adventurer.

"A rare old gentleman is 'Poor Richard,'" said Israel in response to
Paul's observations.

"So he seems, so he seems," answered Paul, his eye still running over
the pamphlet again; "why, 'Poor Richard' reads very much as Doctor
Franklin speaks."

"He wrote it," said Israel.

"Aye? Good. So it is, so it is; it's the wise man all over. I must get
me a copy of this and wear it around my neck for a charm. And now about
our quarters for the night. I am not going to deprive you of your bed,
my man. Do you go to bed and I will doze in the chair here. It's good
dozing in the crosstrees."

"Why not sleep together?" said Israel; "see, it is a big bed. Or perhaps
you don't fancy your bed-fellow. Captain?"

"When, before the mast, I first sailed out of Whitehaven to Norway,"
said Paul, coolly, "I had for hammock-mate a full-blooded Congo. We had
a white blanket spread in our hammock. Every time I turned in I found
the Congo's black wool worked in with the white worsted. By the end of
the voyage the blanket was of a pepper-and-salt look, like an old man's
turning head. So it's not because I am notional at all, but because I
don't care to, my lad. Turn in and go to sleep. Let the lamp burn. I'll
see to it. There, go to sleep."

Complying with what seemed as much a command as a request, Israel,
though in bed, could not fall into slumber for thinking of the little
circumstance that this strange swarthy man, flaming with wild
enterprises, sat in full suit in the chair. He felt an uneasy misgiving
sensation, as if he had retired, not only without covering up the fire,
but leaving it fiercely burning with spitting fagots of hemlock.

But his natural complaisance induced him at least to feign himself
asleep; whereupon. Paul, laying down "Poor Richard," rose from his
chair, and, withdrawing his boots, began walking rapidly but noiselessly
to and fro, in his stockings, in the spacious room, wrapped in Indian
meditations. Israel furtively eyed him from beneath the coverlid, and
was anew struck by his aspect, now that Paul thought himself unwatched.
Stern relentless purposes, to be pursued to the points of adverse
bayonets and the muzzles of hostile cannon, were expressed in