Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/39

Rh getting old, and he hasn't been right since he was smashed up so bad three years ago."

"How smashed?" asked Valentine eagerly.

"Got washed into the scuppers of the Juanita. They found him jammed under a boat with his timbers busted to smithereens. You may have noticed that he walks with a list to port."

"He didn't break his head, did he?" and Valentine tapped his forehead with a significant finger.

"Well, that's not for me, to say," and Mr. Parlin hesitated, with a flutter of an eyelid; "but he has his hobby, and he sets all the sail it'll carry. You may have noticed it this morning. But he was going it very easy then."

"I'd have had my ship long before this," continued Mr. Parlin, "if the old man hadn't put a black mark on my record in the main office. Now that he talks of going out of the line, there's no harm in my sayin' that if I'd flopped on my knees and spouted psalms instead of sticking to my duties, it would be Captain