Читать книгу List, Ye Landsmen!. A Romance of Incident онлайн

94 страница из 122

Captain Greaves took a canister of tobacco from a shelf and handed me a pipe. We filled and smoked. He bade me lay upon a locker and himself sat in his sleeping shelf or bunk, which, being without a top and standing at the height of a knee from the deck, provided a comfortable seat. We discoursed awhile on divers matters relating to the profession of the sea. He asked me to examine his quadrant, his chronometer (which he said was the work of the maker who had manufactured the watch that Captain Cook had taken with him on his last voyage), his charts, of which he had about a score in a canvas bag, and certain volumes on navigation. These things I examined with considerable professional interest. While I looked his eye was never off me. He appeared to be deeply ruminating, and he smoked with an odd motion of his jaw as though he talked to himself. When I was once more seated upon the locker he said:

“I shall cease to call you mister. What need is there for formality between two men who have saved each other’s life?”