"The same."
At this astonishing assertion the young men regarded Willis with an
air of apprehension.
"You think I am mad, no doubt, do you not?"
"Whatever can we think, Willis?"
"I admit that my statement looks very like it at first sight, but
still you are wrong, as you will see by-and-by. I could scarcely
believe my eyes when I saw him. 'Is that you, Bill Stubbs,' says I,
'at last?'
"'Lor love ye!' says he, 'is that you, Pilot?'
"He then took hold of my hand, and gave it such a shake as almost
wrenched it off.
"'Where in all the earth did you hail from?' he said. 'I thought you
were dead and gone?'
"'And I thought you were the same,' said I, 'and no mistake.'
"'Alive and hearty though, as you see, Pilot; only a little at sea
amongst the _mounseers_.'
"'But what about the _Hoboken_?' says I.
"'What _Hoboken_?' says he.
"'Were you not aboard a Yankee cruiser some months back?'
"'Never was aboard a Yankee in all my life,' says Bill.
"And no more he was, for he never left the _Nelson_ till she was high
and dry in Havre dockyard; so, the short and the long of it is, that I
must have been wrong in that instance."
"So I should think," remarked Fritz.
"Yet the resemblance was very remarkable; the only difference was a
carbuncle on the nose, which the real Bill has and the other has not,
but which I had forgotten.
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