"There's only three things you can clean a pipe
with," he used to remark with a twist of paper in hand. "The best's a
feather, the second's a straw, and the third's a girl's hairpin. I never
see such a ship. You can't find any of 'em. Last time I came this way
I did find hairpins anyway, and found 'em on the floor of the captain's
cabin. Regular deposit. Eh?... Feelin' better?"
At which I usually swore.
"Oh, you'll be all right soon. Don't mind my puffin' a bit? Eh?"
He never tired of asking me to "have a hand at Nap. Good game. Makes you
forget it, and that's half the battle."
He would sit swaying with the rolling of the ship and suck at his pipe
of blond tobacco and look with an inexpressibly sage but somnolent blue
eye at the captain by the hour together. "Captain's a Card," he would
say over and over again as the outcome of these meditations. "He'd like
to know what we're up to. He'd like to know--no end."
That did seem to be the captain's ruling idea. But he also wanted to
impress me with the notion that he was a gentleman of good family and to
air a number of views adverse to the English, to English literature, to
the English constitution, and the like.
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