Those lads of twenty-five or
thirty, I could wear them down like chalk whetstones. Maybe she heard--I
don't know; but she didn't let on she did. My proud days those were--my
office in the big building by the Battery. You remember? Aye, a grand
place--the name in fine letters on the door, and on the window the
picture of my big wreckin'-tug, the best-geared afloat and cost the
most--a sailor's fortune just in her--yes--and I'd named it for Her. And
'twas to that same office I used often to come straight from my rough
seawork. She used to come there to take me to drive. Me, who'd been a
castaway sailor-boy--but I could afford all these things then. I could
afford anything She wanted. And She wanted the fine office, and so it
was fitted up with fine desks and clerks, though it wasn't what the
clerks put in their account-books that kept my business goin'. There
were those who said that I'd pay the price some day for tryin' to carry
so many things in my head, but small heed I paid to them--and 'twasn't
in those days my memory dimmed.
There was but little damage to the yacht's bottom--a small matter to
find that out--though the skipper he carried was no master of craft.
So many of them like that, too. To face the sea like men is not
what they're after, not to take winter or summer as it comes, rough
or smooth--no--but always the smooth water and soft winds.
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