“What?”
“Why, that there anchor.”
“What did you expect?”
“Why, that it would break off short. You see there’s been a crack in it for nigh two years, an’ every time I used it, I said, says I, it’s bound to go this time.”
“But why in Heaven’s name did you let it go so long, if it was cracked?”
“Wal, to tell the truth, I never gave it a thought, ’cept when I had occasion to anchor,—and then, of course, I couldn’t get it mended.”
“And so you’ve been trusting your own life, and the lives of other people, to that old, cracked anchor,” cried Mr. Long, indignantly.
“Wal, it held on well down thar at Five Islands, and off on the mud-flats. You know that. It did jest as well as a bran new one, and didn’t break fair this time, nuther.”
“Didn’t break fair! What do you mean?”
“Why, I mean the schooner has kind o’ sot on it when she was aground, and broke it that way.”