There was an odd stress in the situation which began to make me
uncomfortable. I tried to react against this vague feeling.

"It's only my inexperience," I thought.

In the face of that man, several years, I judged, older than myself, I
became aware of what I had left already behind me--my youth. And that
was indeed poor comfort. Youth is a fine thing, a mighty power--as
long as one does not think of it. I felt I was becoming self-conscious.
Almost against my will I assumed a moody gravity. I said: "I see you
have kept her in very good order, Mr. Burns."

Directly I had uttered these words I asked myself angrily why the deuce
did I want to say that? Mr. Burns in answer had only blinked at me. What
on earth did he mean?

I fell back on a question which had been in my thoughts for a long
time--the most natural question on the lips of any seaman whatever
joining a ship. I voiced it (confound this self-consciousness) in a
degaged cheerful tone: "I suppose she can travel--what?"

Now a question like this might have been answered normally, either in
accents of apologetic sorrow or with a visibly suppressed pride, in a
"I don't want to boast, but you shall see," sort of tone. There are
sailors, too, who would have been roughly outspoken: "Lazy brute," or
openly delighted: "She's a flyer." Two ways, if four manners.

But Mr. Burns found another way, a way of his own which had, at all
events, the merit of saving his breath, if no other.