"'Ah, well, you take an opportunity of doing so one day, sir,' answered
the old fellow; 'it's worth the experiment. If you're telling a story
before a cat, and she don't get uneasy during any part of the narrative,
you can reckon you've got hold of a thing as it will be safe for you to
tell to the Lord Chief Justice of England.
"'I've got a messmate,' he continued; 'William Cooley is his name. We
call him Truthful Billy. He's as good a seaman as ever trod
quarter-deck; but when he gets spinning yarns he ain't the sort of man as
I could advise you to rely upon. Well, Billy, he's got a dog, and I've
seen him sit and tell yarns before that dog that would make a cat squirm
out of its skin, and that dog's taken 'em in and believed 'em. One
night, up at his old woman's, Bill told us a yarn by the side of which
salt junk two voyages old would pass for spring chicken. I watched the
dog, to see how he would take it. He listened to it from beginning to
end with cocked ears, and never so much as blinked. Every now and then
he would look round with an expression of astonishment or delight that
seemed to say: "Wonderful, isn't it!" "Dear me, just think of it!" "Did
you ever!" "Well, if that don't beat everything!" He was a
chuckle-headed dog; you could have told him anything.
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