. And he liked me, too ... I think
he did. He'd heard of me, he said, and would I examine his yacht--the
_Rameses_ that was--to see if any damage had been done--she'd grounded
comin' in by Romer Shoal the day before. There'd be too much delay to
put her in dry dock, and he wanted to sail soon's could be--if she was
sound--on her regular winter West India cruise. 'Twas in January, a fine
clear day, and I said, all right, I'd send my oldest boy down and look
at her. My oldest boy--but you know him? Aye, a grand lad. Both grand
lads. Modelled off their mother, the pair of them. If I'd only a
daughter like her ... the woman she was! A wife for a seafarin' man.
"Watch and watch I've stood wi' ye," she said, goin'--"watch and watch,
but I'm no good to see the lights nor to grip the wheel longer. The
sight's gone and the strength, Matt. Watchmate, bunkmate, and shipmate
I've been to ye, but ye're in smooth water now ... and no longer ye'll
need me." A daughter to stand by you she'd be. All my money I'd give
for one such.

And while he was in the office She came in. "Ah-h!" he said--and then,
"Your daughter, captain?" I said, "No--my wife," maybe o'er-proudly. I
was not ashamed of my years, for it's not years but age--leastwise so
I'd always held--that sets a man back. 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 cra