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thing to eat for nearly two weeks. There was enough China Sea in the galley to float the stove, and the fo’ c’s’tle was flooded, too. And you couldn’t sleep a wink. No place on the darned old tub stayed still long enough for you to lie on it. And every one was soaked to the skin all the time, with green seas boiling over the deck keeping you busy jumping for the rat-lines to keep from being washed over. Oh, it was all-wool-and-a-yard-wide-Hell, I’ll tell you. You ought to have been there. I remember thinking about you at the worst of it when you couldn’t force a breath out against the wind, and saying to myself: ‘This’d cure Rob of them ideas of his about the beautiful sea, if he could see it.’ And it would have too, you bet! [He nods emphatically.]

—And you don’t see any romance in that?

—Romance be blowed! It was hell! [As an afterthought.] Oh, I was forgetting! One of the men was washed overboard—a Norwegian—Ollic we called him. [With a grin of sarcasm.] I suppose that’s romance, eh? Well, it might be for a fish, but not for me, old man!

—[Dryly.] The sea doesn’t seem to have impressed you very favorably.

—I should say it didn’t! It’s a dog’s life. You work like the devil and put up with all kinds of hardships—for what? For a rotten wage you’d be ashamed to take on shore.

—Then you’re not going to—follow it up?

—Not me! I’m through! I’ll never set