“Yes, yes. I think you have told me that. What did you think of her, Mr. Harker?”
“She was a very sweet little ship, sir.”
“We did not think her little, in the sixties, Mr. Harker. She was 891 tons. We carried a crew of 43 men and boys: sixteen hands to a watch: we could shorten her down to her lower topsails, which we were the first to set, or among the first, with the watch alone; or, if we had all the stunsails set, and it happened to be daylight, with the watch and the idlers. That is different from the Pathfinder, Mr. Harker.”
“Well, sir, we have a harder time to compete with.”
“A harder time,” Captain Cary said. “There is no such thing as an easy time; but in life you are wanted or not wanted; and the Pathfinder is not wanted.”
“Don’t say that, Captain Cary, a crack ship and captain will always be wanted.”
“Don’t you believe it, boy”; Captain Cary always called him a boy when he wished to silence all opposition. “Don’t you believe it. What is passing out of this world is the business of personal relations. Captain Wrattson is a master mariner, Mr. Willis is a ship-designer with a second mate’s ticket. When you go into their office you see that they know you and the worth of your efforts for them, and the difficulties you have faced for them. It is all friend to friend, man to man, sailor to sailor, if you understand what I mean.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So it was when I had the Petrella. Pennington and Foster were like that: Fremantle and Henry: Waltham and Binfields’, Shurlock Brothers, Richard Oakleys’, all the old firms were like that: the Green Sleeves Line: they were family affairs; an officer was a friend of the firm and could marry the employer’s daughter. But that is gone, or going: ships have become too big: they are not owned by “firms” now: nothing’s firm in the business: they are owned by companies; who don’t know one hand on their paysheets. A company, as we say, has neither a stern to be kicked nor a soul to be saved. It is a damned abstraction, Mr. Harker, without either a mind to understand or an eye to see: it has neither guts to scare nor hands to shake.”
“Yes, but, Captain Cary . . .”