"I say! you know what countryman 'e carpenter be?"
"Yes," said I; "he's a German."
"What kind of a German?" said the cook.
"He belongs to Bremen," said I.
"Are you sure o' dat?" said he.
I satisfied him on that point by saying that he could speak no
language but the German and English.
"I'm plaguy glad o' dat," said the cook. "I was mighty 'fraid he was a
Fin. I tell you what, I been plaguy civil to that man all the voyage."
I asked him the reason of this, and found that he was fully possessed
with the notion that Fins are wizards, and especially have power over
winds and storms. I tried to reason with him about it, but he had the
best of all arguments, that from experience, at hand, and was not to
be moved. He had been in a vessel at the Sandwich Islands, in which
the sail-maker was a Fin, and could do anything he was of a mind to.
This sail-maker kept a junk bottle in his berth, which was always just
half full of rum, though he got drunk upon it nearly every day.
