“And that Portingallo wench, and the Spanish lass with the dark eyes, and that great Greek, and a score beside.”
“Hah! Yes, skipper,” said Wat calmly, “I’ve got an ugly shell, but the core inside is very soft.”
“Soft? Yes.”
“But you’re going back a many years, skipper.”
“I need,” cried Gil angrily. “A man of your age, too! Why, Wat, you’re sixty, if you are a day!”
“Sixty-four,” growled Wat quietly, as he took out his flint and steel and screwed up his grim weather-beaten face.
“Then it’s a disgrace to you!”
“Disgrace? What’s being sixty-four got to do with it?”
“Why you’re an old man, sir!”
“Old man? Not I, captain. I’m as young as ever I was, and as fond of a pretty girl. I’m not old; and, if I was, I get fonder of ’em every year I live.”