Beadle's Dime Novels No. 94: The Mad Skipper — page 75: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ALL A JOKE.» a; “ You much like Joe—no ?” “You know I do.” * You grieve much if me die?” “Good God! what do you mean?’ exclaimed Frank, noticing the strange, wild gleam now flashing out of the great eyes. _ The dwarf pressed his head against his friend’s bite, but did “not reply. “ Joe! answer me!” “Think me die soon ; heart very full; ’fraid it burst.” “ What makes it so?” «Think all de time of Lilian—beautiful Lilian !” ) - “That can not kill you, my poor chum, How you talk!” ~ Joy kill sometime—no?”’ “T have heard so; but—pshaw! you are not going to die, little Joe. What put such a strange thought into your head ?” “ Heart very full. Joy what make it so full, me think. Me try hard to be glad when me hear you ask Lilian to marry, and me think me got glad at last.” “Did you say you érzed to be glad, Joe ?” “Yees! yees! but no mean it; no, no, me no mean it!” he exclaimed, noticing a troubled expression in Frank's eyes, “Me glad without trying/ And now me will go down into steerage and sleep well, because you going to be happy !” » “So it was all a joke about your dying ?” “‘Yees! yees!” clapping his hands and forcing a laugh— “all joke, nothing more. He! he! he!’ And he rubbed Frank’s arm with his shaggy head. “ Miniature—let me see the miniature Lilian gave you,” he suddenly exclaimed, looking up. ‘“ Me have never seen.” “ Certainly, here it is,’ replied Frank, producing the locket. “T don’t know as there is light enough to—” “ Yees, yees!” interrupted Joe, seizing the miniature and pressing it to his lips. ‘ Me run to the leeward, where moon Shine bright ; then me can see it plain.” Accordingly the two men moved to the larboard bulwarks, and the Portuguese, clambering to the top of the rail, held up the likeness, and scanned it closely. Awkward little dwarf! His short, thick fingers trembled, comicbooks.conm