took to be the captain, in the glass house above my head.

I remember thinking how comfortable it was, this division of labour
which made it unnecessary for me to study fogs, winds, tides, and
navigation, in order to visit my friend who lived across an arm of
the sea. It was good that men should be specialists, I mused. The
peculiar knowledge of the pilot and captain sufficed for many
thousands of people who knew no more of the sea and navigation than
I knew. On the other hand, instead of having to devote my energy
to the learning of a multitude of things, I concentrated it upon a
few particular things, such as, for instance, the analysis of Poe's
place in American literature--an essay of mine, by the way, in the
current Atlantic. Coming aboard, as I passed through the cabin, I
had noticed with greedy eyes a stout gentleman reading the
Atlantic, which was open at my very essay. And there it was again,
the division of labour, the special knowledge of the pilot and
captain which permitted the stout gentleman to read my special
knowledge on Poe while they carried him safely from Sausalito to
San Francisco.

A red-faced man, slamming the cabin door behind him and stumping
out on the deck, interrupted my reflections, though I made a mental
note of the topic for use in a projected essay which I had thought
of calling "The Necessity for Freedom: A Plea for the Artist."
The red-faced man shot a glance up at the pilot-house, gazed around
at the fog, stumped across the deck and back (he evidently had
artificial legs), and stood still by my side, legs wide apart, and
with an expression of keen enjoyment on his face. I was not wrong
when I decided that his days had been spent on the sea.