"If I have," I answered, "I have forgotten."
"My table manners," he said. "I fear they are almost impeccable." And he walked over to the window, taking care, I noticed, not to stand in front of it.
"Sad, is it not, that I should fail in such a trivial matter? But it happened so long ago while I was courting your mother, to be exact. My father-in-law, rest his soul, was an atrocity at table. The viands, my son, scattered from his knife over the board, like chaff before the flail. Yet, will you believe it? Any time he chose to speak his mouth was always full. I watched him, watched him with wonder—or was it horror?—I cannot remember which. And I resolved to go, to go anywhere, but never to do likewise. The result today is perhaps unfortunate. Yet watch me, my son, even in that you see the practical value of a bad example."
"Yes," I said, "I am watching you."
He seemed about to turn from the window, and then something outside held his attention.
"Ha!" he said. "A sloop is coming in—a clumsy looking vessel. Whose is it, Henry?"
I walked to the window to get a better look, but he reached out and drew me near him.
"Let us be careful of the windows this morning. The light is bad, and we have very much the same figure. There. Now you can see it—out by the bar. It carries too much canvas forward and spills half the wind. Have you seen it before, Henry?"
The sun had been trying to break through the clouds, and a few rays had crept out, and glanced on the angry gray of the water, so that it shone here and there like scratches in dull lead. The three ships near our wharf were tossing fitfully, and on all three, the crews were busy with the rigging. Out further towards the broad curve of the horizon was the white smear of a sail, and as I looked, I could see the lines beneath the canvas. He was right. It was a sloop, running free with the tide pushing her on.
"Yes," I said, "I know the boat, though I do not see why she is putting in."