Page:Cruise of the Jasper B (1916).djvu/41

 And with that he put his fishing pole over his shoulder and prepared to leave—a tall, strong-looking old man with long legs and knotty wrists, who moved across the deck with surprising spryness. At the gangplank he sang out without turning his head:

"As far as my bein' a skipper's concerned, they's no law agin' callin' me Cap'n Abernethy if you want to. I come of a seafarin' fambly."

He crossed the platform; when he had gone thirty yards further he stopped, turned around, and shouted:

"Is she a schooner, hey? You want to know is she a schooner? If you was askin' me, she ain't nothin' now. But if you was to ask me again I might say she could be schooner-rigged. Lots of boats is schooner-rigged."

There are affinities between atom and atom, between man and woman, between man and man. There are also affinities between men and things—if you choose to call a ship, which has a spirit of its own, merely a thing. There must have been this affinity between Cleggett and the Jasper B. Only an unusual person would have thought of buying her. But Cleggett loved her at first sight.