“Yes,” replied I.
“Have you sharp eyes, a good memory, and plenty of nerve?”
“I believe I’ve got the two first, I don’t know about the other.”
“I suppose not, it hasn’t been tried yet. How far can you see through a fog?”
“According how thick it is.”
“I see you’ve a glass there: tell me what you make of that vessel just opening from Blackwall Reach.”
“What, that ship?”
“Oh, you can make it out to be a ship, can you, with the naked eye? Well, then, you have good eyes.”
I plied my glass upon the vessel, and, after a time, not having forgotten the lessons so repeatedly given me by Spicer, I said, “She has no colours up, but she’s an Embden vessel by her build.”
“Oh,” said he, “hand me the glass. The boy’s right; and a good glass, too. Come, I see you do know something—and good knowledge, too, for a pilot. It often saves us a deal of trouble when we know a vessel by her build; them foreigners sail too close to take pilots. Can you stand cold? Have you got a P-jacket?”