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  buying pearls in Margherita was showing his wares to the wife of a Dutch officer returning to Curaçao from a visit to relatives in Surinam, and the two were chattering away in voluble French. Our captain, a fine specimen of a Hollander, was playing chess with an Italian, and the latter was winning, having no ship on the coast and his brain unfilled with plans regarding the securing of a cargo for Havre or Amsterdam. Through the crowd came a stolid Dutch quartermaster, picking his way along the deck to read the taffrail-log, which he did, and returned oblivious to all but the number in his head, as I could see from the moving of his lips as he muttered it over to himself.

Leyden led the way aft to the grating beside the hand steering-gear—the place where we usually held our sessions of swapping experiences. I drew out a fresh cigar and the German lit his big porcelain pipe, an apparatus especially adapted to the needs of the raconteur, as one could take a puff or two and [ 50 ]