First Sentence

"DOUBTLESS every one who has read Marryatt's works will remember Captain Kearney, who is introduced as a prominent actor in that entertaining romance, "Peter Simple," and whose propensity for dealing in hyperbole was so irrepressible that even on his death-bed, with the rattle in his throat, and when he was almost speechless, he said to the hero of the story, who was leaning over him to catch the last sentences that with great effort gurgled from his lips, "Peter, I'm going now-not that the rattle-in my throat-is a sign of death-for I once knew a man-to live with-the rattle in his throat-for six weeks," when he fell back and died."