CHAPTER VII
I soon took an interest in my new acquaintance. He was communicative, shrewd, and peculiar; and though apt to express himself quaintly, it was always with the pith of one who had seen a great deal of at least one portion of his fellow-creatures. The conversation, under such circumstances, did not flag; on the contrary, it soon grew more interesting by the stranger's beginning to touch on his private interests. He told me that he was a mariner who had been cast ashore by one of the accidents of his calling, and, by way of cutting in a word in his own favor, he gave me to understand that he had seen a great deal, more especially of that castle of his fellow-creatures who like himself live by frequenting the mighty deep.
“ I am very happy,” I said, “to have met with a stranger
