The Autobiography of Methuselah

is a fine fellow. His moral character is beyond reproach, and I have never caught him in any kind of a wilful deception such as many parents bew

bath on any night of the week without first having to clear away from the tub the evidence of Noah's interest in marine matters. Nothing in the world seemed to delight his spirit more as a child than to fill the tub full of water, turn on the shower at its fullest speed, and play what he called flood in it, with a shingle or a chip, or if he could not find either of these, with a floating leaf. Many a time I have found him long after he was supposed to have gone to bed sitting on the bath-room floor singing a roysterous nautical song like "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep," or "A Life On the Ocean Wave," while he pushed a floating soap dish filled with ants, spiders and lady-bugs up and down that overflowing tub; and later in his life, when more manly sports would seem to be more to any one's tastes, while his playmates were out in the o

r lines are perfect, and the model indicates that she will prove a speedy proposition, but it seems to m

gged his shoulders as much as to inquire

y as if he were very much bored, "you are entirely wrong. This isn't a sloop, or a catamaran, or a caravel

that this affair is not a battle-ship, tug, collier, brig, lugger, barge or gravy-boat. Neither is it a dhow, gig or skiff. But tha

?" he deman

to sail a boat like that off here in the woods, whe

r the first time in his life gave evidence of the haunt

ocean around here some day than you can keep off

earth he ever expected to get an ocean out there, half way up the summit of our highest mo

he Desert of Sahara to the top of Mount Ar

nd it isn't impossible that the thing will be done before I get through. There will be a demand

of speech. Speaking to my wife on the subject of the day's adventure that very evening, after I had expressed my determination to apply for the

this matter. He has always had a great s

of a shower that will make the boy's habit of building caravels in the middle of ten-acre lots, and submarines on fiftee

critically on this strange predilection of my son, and several of them

far more to the point if he went in for the breeding of camels, or some other useful vehicle of transportation, instead of constructing f

d it out that after all it was better that he should be building dories and canal-boats out under the apple trees, and having what he called "a caulking good time," in an innocent way, than spending his time running up and down the Great White Way, between supper-time and breakfast, making night hideous wi

e said, firmly. "I'd rather have w

leep in their cradles, which he kept rocking continuously so that they would get used to the motion, and would be able to go to sea when the time came without suffering from sea-sickness. All clocks were thrust bodily out of his house, and if anybody ever stopped at the farm to inquire the time of day he was informed that it was "twenty minutes past six bells," or "nineteen minutes of three bells," or some other unmeaning balderdash according to the position of the sun. When the farmhouse needed painting, instead of renewing the soft and lovely white that had made it a grateful sight to the eye for centuries, Noah had it covered with pitch

you bought last February; and as for liquidation-well, father dear, you can take my word for it that when this mortgage of mine is presented at my office for payment by its present holder there will be liqui

, innocently. "But may I a

er to the Sinking Fund which will be in full

d years I stopped arguing with him on the futile extravagance of his course. As we have seen in the last chapter of my memoirs, I

having shippe

enough truth in the story in so far as its details went, to lend color to its sensational accusations. It could not be denied, as was stated in The Enochsville Evening Gad, that Noah had built a large, unwieldy vessel of his own designing in the old pasture up back of our Enochsville farm, miles away from tide-level. That it resembled what The Gad called a cross between a cow-barn and a Lehigh Valley Coal-Barge, was evident to anybody who had merely glanced at it. But what was its apparent purpose? asked the reporter of The Gad. Stated to be the housing of a menagerie during a projected cruise of forty

ridicule, but as it went on it became even worse, for it now got

insidious than any one has hitherto suspected, but which is now seen to be that of separating the widows and or

was in brief stated to be a scheme for the impoverishment of innocent investors, by selling them shares of stock, both common and preferred, in his International Marine and Zoo Flotation Company. According to the writer of this infamous libel, immediately t

which will be sold to the public at par; subject to a first mortgage already existing, and held by Noah and his sons, which it is inte

ng in deluges this little old world has ever known. The Preadamite Steel Trust i

to these and other equally nefarious charges was, while he had intended to have quarters for every kind of bea

lief that devotion to the life of a seaman makes a