through a fog, and never know what trap or hole may be ahead of you. I
know the sea in all her ways and moods, sir. Some of them are rather
trying. But my home and my business is on her, and in her worst temper
she suits me better than any four-walled room, where I would feel like a
stormy petrel shut up in a cage. The sea and I are kin. I often feel as
if I had tides in my blood that flow and ebb with her tides."

"I would not gainsay you, Captain. Every man's blood runs as he feels.
You were a different man and a grander man when you were guiding the
yacht through the storm than you are sitting here beside me eating and
drinking. My blood begins to flow quick when I go into big rooms filled
with a thousand power looms. Their noise and clatter is in my ears a
song of praise, and very often the men and women who work at them are
singing grandly to this accompaniment. Sometimes I join in their song,
as I walk among them, for the Great Master hears as well as sees, and
though these looms are almost alive in their marvelous skill, it may be
that He is pleased to hear the little human note mingling with the
voices of the clattering, humming, burring looms."

"To be sure He is. The song of labor is His, and I hev no doubt it is
quite as sweet in His ear as the song of praise. Your song is among the
looms, and mine is among the winds and waves, but they are both the
same, sir. It is all right. I'm sure I'm satisfied."

"How you do love the sea, Captain!"

"To be sure, I was born on it and, please God, I hope my death may be
from it and my grave in it, nearby some coast where the fisher-folk live
happily around me."