"A man ought to be able to aim
his own pollock and potaters, or else he might's well give up the ship.
I tell 'em if I was only back in my young days where I could do a full
day's work, I'd be satisfied."
Louise had turned up a fiddler with the toe of her boot. As the creature
scurried for sanctuary, Washy observed:
"Them's curious critters. All crabs is."
"I think they are curious," Louise agreed. "Like a cross-eyed man. Look
one way and run another."
"Surely--surely. Talk about a curiosity--the curiousest-osity I ever
see was a crab they have in Japanese waters; big around's a clam-bucket
and dangling gre't long laigs to it like a sea-going giraffe."'
Louise was thankful for this opportunity for laughter, for that
"curiousest-osity" was too much for her sense of the ludicrous.
Like almost every other man of any age that Louise had met about
Cardhaven--save Cap'n Abe himself--Washy had spent a good share of his
life in deep-bottomed craft. But he had never risen higher than petty
officer.
"Some men's born to serve afore the mast--or how'd we git sailors?"
observed the old fellow, with all the philosophy of the unambitious man.
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