His reasons were numerous and ingenious, and, as usual, a little discursive.
They might be summed up as follows: He never had sat in a parliament, and he was curious to know how it would feel; it would increase the respect of the ship's company, to find their commander of so much account in a strange port; he had had some experience at Stunnin'tun by reading the newspapers, and he didn't doubt of his abilities at all, a circumstance that rarely failed of making a good legislator; the congressman in his part of the country was some such man as himself, and what was good for the goose was good for the gander; he knew Miss Poke would be pleased to hear he had been chosen; he wondered if he should be called the Honorable Noah Poke, and whether he should receive eight dollars a day, and mileage from the spot where the ship then was; the Perpendiculars might count on him, for his word was as good as his bond; as for the constitution, he had got on under the constitution at home, and he believed a man who could do that might get on under any constitution; he didn't intend to say a great deal in parliament, but what he did say he hoped might be recorded for the use of his children; together with a great deal more of the same sort of argumentation and apology.
The third schooner now brought us to.

This vessel sent another committee, who announced themselves to be the representatives of a party that was termed the Tangents.

They were not numerous, but sufficiently so to hold the balance whenever the Horizontals and the Perpendiculars crossed each other directly at right angles, as was the case at present; and they had now determined to run a single candidate of their own.
They, too, wished to fortify themselves by the foreign interest, as was natural, and had come out in quest of a proper person.

I suggested the first mate; but against this Noah protested, declaring that come what would, the ship must on no account be deserted.

Time pressed; and, while the captain and the subordinate were hotly disputing the propriety of permitting the latter to serve, Bob, who had already tasted the sweets of political importance, in his assumed character of prince-royal, stepped slyly up to the committee, and gave in his name.