“I say, Captain Chubb, how do you manage to do it?”
“Do what, my lad?”
“Why, say for certain what the weather’s going to be.”
There was a low chuckling sound such as might have been emitted by a good-humoured porpoise which had just ended one of its underwater curves, and thrust its head above the surface to take a good deep breath before it turned itself over and dived down again.
“Second natur’, youngster, and that’s use. Takes a long time to learn, and when you have larnt your lesson perfect as you think, you find that you don’t know it a bit.”
“But you did know it,” said Rodd. “You said that the storm would come on again, when it was beautiful and fine yesterday evening; and here it is.”
“Well, yes, my lad, if you goes on for years trying to hit something you must get a lucky shot sometimes.”
“Oh yes, but there’s something more than that,” said Rodd. “When I have been amongst the fishermen in Plymouth, and over in Saltash, I have wondered to find how exact they were about the weather, and how whenever they wouldn’t take us out fishing they were always right. They seemed to know that bad weather was coming on.”
“Oh, of course,” said the skipper. “Why, my lad, if you got your living by going out in your boat, don’t you think the first thing you would try to learn would be to make it your living?”
“Why, of course,” cried Rodd.