I've heerd as how when a storm came on
It 'ud turn clean upside down,
But I _never_ could make out as why
Its skipper didn't drown.
He was the most unwashedest
Old salt I ever knowed:
And all the things as he speaked about
Was nearly always "blowed."
One day he told me a straw'nry tale,
But I don't think it were lies,
Bekos he swore as it was true--
Tho' a big 'un as to size.
He sez as how in the Biskey Bay
They was sailin' along one night,
When a _summat_ rose from the bilin' waves
As give him a _norful_ fright.
He wouldn't exzagerate, he sed--
No, he wouldn't, not if he died;
But the head of that monster was most as big
As a bloomin' mountain-side.
Its eyes was ten times bigger 'an the moon;
Its ears was as long as a street;
And each of its eyelids--_without tellin' lies_--
Would have kivered an or'nary sheet.
"And now," said he, "may I _never speak agin_
If I'm a-tellin' yer wrong,
But the length o' that sarpint from head to tail
Warn't a _ninch_ under _ten mile long_,
"To the end of its tail there hung a great wale,
And a-ridin' on its back was sharks;
On the top of its head about two hundred seals
Was a-havin' no end of larks.
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