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186 to return, perhaps because he knew he  never could. He wished that I should go back there to live after he died; I did go, but  it was only for a year.”

“Didn’t you like it, Joe?” asked one of the fishermen lightly.

Johann regarded him with solemn, earnest eyes.

“I thought at first I would like it,” he answered. “The order appealed to me, and the lack of waste and the doing everything so  well. But in a little I saw that it was too well done, too perfect. Does Nature never waste? Did the dear Gott make us perfect? No, but they try to think they can make you so in Germany.” He was silent a moment, then his last  words broke from him almost with a cry. “To be perfect you must be a thing—not a man. And in Germany they would make you a thing, they would break your heart, they  would trample on your soul !”

“And they have been over here trying to get you to help them?” the old Captain questioned  gently.

“Yes, they keep saying do this, or do that; it is for the Fatherland. ‘That lighthouse, should an accident happen there and some of