I was leaning over the rail one day, looking across the wharf, and I
saw J. R. Craney come strolling down with one hand in his pocket and
the other pulling a chin beard. He hadn't changed so much, except
that he looked older and had a chin beard and wore a long black coat
and plush vest. He looked at the _Good Sister_, and he looked
at me, and neither of us said anything for a long time, and his business
eye was absent-minded and calm, and the blind one pale and
dead-looking. Then I says:
"Why don't you get a glass eye, Craney?" and he says, "I wished
you'd call me J. R. Phipp. What you doing with that there ship?"
which was a promising rhyme, but he didn't know he'd done it. I
judged his family name had been collecting barnacles, till it wasn't
worth cleaning maybe, or maybe he was a fugitive or exile from
Corazon, or maybe he'd speculated in matrimony, and was fleeing from
hot water, or maybe kettles, or maybe he'd assassinated his great
aunt's second cousin's husband, which was no business of mine, any of
it.
"Look here," I says, not feeling agreeable. "Here's my programme.
You go up to 22 Market Street, and ask the agent. Then he'll say he
don't know.
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