"I'm glad enough to see them come. The winter seemed a long one," said Anthony.
"It was," agreed Mr. Sparhawk. "And severe. Exceptionally severe. I do not recall a winter like it in many years." He smiled about the room, with its eddies of tobacco smoke, its reek of spirits and ale, its lifting voices and earnest merchants. "You like this hurly-burly, I think?" said he.
"Yes," answered Anthony.
"Young men always crave conflict," said Mr. Sparhawk. "If it's not of one sort it's of another. Some like to take themselves away to strange places and collect merchandise in perilous ways; others covet the uncertainties of the sea in bringing the goods home; but you, it seems, are the kind who like to measure wits with the sharpers in the exchanges, after the ship is in and the cargo on the wharf."
"While I like the attacks and defenses, the doublings and turnings of merchandizing," said Anthony, "I will not say it is an object with me. I'd much rather be your collector of good in foreign ports, or your shipman who carries them home."
Mr. Sparhawk laughed pleasantly.
"And yet Dr. King tells me you've lately refused the General Stark, when your uncle would have made you master of her."
Anthony nodded; but his eyes were fixed upon the earnest traffickers about him. Mr. Sparhawk put his finger-tips together with precision.
"I would have thought," said he, "that to a youth of your active habit of mind that would have been an unusual offer. The Stark is an able vessel, I'm told, and a lucky vessel, which means even more."
"I have no wish to go to sea just now," said Anthony.