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Six months after our "gam" with the Yankees Tom Lokins and I found ourselves seated once more in the little garret beside my dear old mother.
 
"Deary me, Robert, how changed ye are!"
 
"Changed, Mother! I should think so! If you'd gone through all that I've done and seen since we last sat together in this room, you'd be changed too."
 
"And have ye really seen the whales, my boy?" continued my mother, stroking my face with her old hand.
 
"Seen them? aye, and killed them too—many of them."
 
"You've been in danger, my son," said my mother earnestly, "but the Lord has preserved you safe through it all."
 
"Aye, Mother, He has preserved my life in the midst of many dangers," said I, "for which I am most thankful."
 
There was a short silence after this, during which my mother and I gazed earnestly at each other, and Tom Lokins smoked his pipe and stared at the fire.
 
"Robert, how big is a whale?" enquired my mother suddenly.
 
"How big? why, it's as big as a small ship, only it's longer, and not quite so fat."
 
"Robert," replied my mother gravely, "ye didn't use to tell untruths; ye must be jokin'."
 
"Joking, Mother, I was never more in earnest in my life. Why, I tell you that I've seen, aye, and helped to cut up, whales that were more than sixty feet long, with heads so big that their mouths could have taken in a boat. Why, Mother, I declare to you that you could put this room into a whale's mouth, and you and Tom and I could sit round this table and take our tea upon his tongue quite comfortable. Isn't that true, Tom?"
 
My mother looked at Tom, who removed his pipe, puffed a cloud of smoke, and nodded his head twice very decidedly.
 
"Moreover," said I, "a whale is so big and strong, that it can knock a boat right up into the air, and break in the sides of a ship. One day a whale fell right on top of one of our boats and smashed it all to bits. Now that's a real truth!"
 
Again my mother looked at Tom Lokins, and again that worthy man puffed an immense cloud of smoke, and nodded his head more decidedly than before. Being anxious to put to flight all her doubts at once, he said solemnly, "Old ooman, that's a fact!"
 
"Robert," said my mother, "tell me something about the whales."
 
Just as she said this the door opened, and in came the good old gentleman with............