I've been a matter of some fifteen or twenty years knocking about, off and on, in one way or another, with this same instrument, and pretty's the service now, I tell ye, that it's done me in that bit of time." "No doubt, no doubt; but what's your trade, if I may be so bold, that made you larn the use of it so nicely ?" "Oh, what--my trade?
Why, to say the truth, I never was brought up to any trade in particular, but I am a pretty slick hand, now, I tell you, at all of them.

I've been in my time a little of a farmer, a little of a merchant, a little of a sailor, and, somehow or other, a little of everything, and all sort of things.

My father was jest like myself, and swore, before I was born, that I should be born jest like him--and so I was.

Never were two black peas more alike.

He was a 'cute old fellow, and swore he'd make me so too--and so he did.