human
I never seed the like on't, answered Jim.
gpt
That schooner must ha' made most of her passage under water. She's as deep as one of our coasters comin' in with a load o' brick!
human
She's deep; but not as deep as a craft I once made a cruise in. I was aboard of the first of Uncle Sam's gun-boats, that crossed the pond to Gibraltar. When we got in, it made the Mediterranean stare, I can tell you! We had furrin officers aboard us, the whull time, lookin' about, and wonderin', as they called it, if we wasn't amphibbies.
gpt
What's that? demanded Jim, rather hastily.
human
There's no sich rope in the ship.
gpt
I know that well enough; but an amphibby, as I understand it, is a new sort of whale, that comes up to breathe, like all of that family, as old Dr. Mitchell, of Cow Neck, calls the critturs. So the furrin officers thought we must be of the amphibby family, to live so much under water, as it seemed to them. It was wet work, I can tell you, boys; I don't think I got a good breath more than once an hour, the whull of the first day we was out. One of the furrin officers asked our captain how the gun-boat steered. He wasn't a captain, at all--only a master, you see, and we all called him Jumpin' Billy. So Jumpin' Billy says, 'Don't know, sir.' 'What! crossed the Atlantic in her, and don't know how your craft steers!' says the furrin officer, says he--and well he might, Jim, since nothin' that ever lived could go from Norfolk to Gibraltar, without _some_ attention to the helm--but Jumpin' Billy had another story to tell. 'No, sir; don't know,' he answered. 'You see, sir, a nor-wester took us right aft, as we cleared the capes, and down she dove, with her nose under and her starn out, and she come across without having a chance to try the rudder.'