The effect of success was always to make Mr.
Truck loquacious, and he now began to tell many excellent anecdotes, of
which he had stores, all of events that had happened to him in person, or
of which he had been an eye-witness; and on which his hearers, as Sancho
said, might so certainly depend as true, that, if they chose, they might
safely swear they had seen them themselves.
"Speaking of churches and doors, Sir George," he said, between the puffs
of the cigar, "were you ever in Rhode Island?"
"Never, as this is my first visit to America, captain."
"True; well, you will be likely to go there, if you go to Boston, as it is
the best way; unless you would prefer to run over Nantucket shoals, and a
hundred miles of ditto as Mr. Dodge calls it."
"_Ditter_, captain, if you please--_ditter_: it is the continental word
for round-about."
"The d---l it is! it is worth knowing, however. And what may be the
French for pee-jacket?"
"You mistake me, sir,--_ditter_, a circuit, or the longer way."
"That is the road we are now travelling, by George!--I say, Leach, do you
happen to know that we are making a ditter to America?"
"You were speaking of a church, Captain Truck," politely interposed Sir
George, who had become rather intimate with his fellow-occupant of the
state-room.
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