"I know"—he waved the hand that wasn't holding the little boy—"I know. And"—he almost smiled—"you're not afraid to come to sea with me?"
"Why more afraid," I said, "than you to take me with you?"
"You were a great friend of Arthur's?"
"A friend to Arthur—and more if I could," I answered.
He had a way of throwing his head back and letting his eyes look out, as from a distance, or as if he would take the measure of a man. 'Twas so he looked out at me now.
"He's a hard case of a man, shouldn't you say, Simon Kippen, who would play a shipmate foul?"
I said nothing to that.
"And, master or hand, we're surely all shipmates," he added; to which again I said nothing.
"Will you take Saul Haverick for dory mate?" he said again.
"I bear Saul Haverick no great love," I said; "but I have never heard he wasn't a good fisherman, and who should ask more than that of his mate in a dory?"