his ship; a woman in a blue tunic edged with gold, the face perhaps
not so very, very pretty, but her bare white arms beautifully
shaped and extended as if she were swimming? Did I? Who would
have expected such a things . . . After twenty years too!

Nobody could have guessed from his tone that the woman was made of
wood; his trembling voice, his agitated manner gave to his
lamentations a ludicrously scandalous flavour. . . . Disappeared at
night--a clear fine night with just a slight swell--in the gulf of
Bengal. Went off without a splash; no one in the ship could tell
why, how, at what hour--after twenty years last October. . . . Did
I ever hear! . . .

I assured him sympathetically that I had never heard--and he became
very doleful. This meant no good he was sure. There was something
in it which looked like a warning. But when I remarked that surely
another figure of a woman could be procured I found myself being
soundly rated for my levity. The old boy flushed pink under his
clear tan as if I had proposed something improper. One could
replace masts, I was told, or a lost rudder--any working part of a
ship; but where was the use of sticking up a new figurehead? What
satisfaction? How could one care for it? It was easy to see that
I had never been shipmates with a figurehead for over twenty years.

"A new figurehead!" he scolded in unquenchable indignation. "Why!
I've been a widower now for eight-and-twenty years come next May
and I would just as soon think of getting a new wife. You're as
bad as that fellow Jacobus."

I was highly amused.