“No! No! The truth is that one must not make too much of anything in life, good or bad.”
“Live at half-speed,” I murmured perversely. “Not everybody can do that.”
“You’ll be glad enough presently if you can keep going even at that rate,” he retorted with his air of conscious virtue. “And there’s another thing: a man should stand up to his bad luck, to his mistakes, to his conscience and all that sort of thing. Why—what else would you have to fight against.”
I kept silent. I don’t know what he saw in my face but he asked abruptly:
“Why—you aren’t faint-hearted?”
“God only knows, Captain Giles,” was my sincere answer.
“That’s all right,” he said calmly. “You will learn soon how not to be faint-hearted. A man has got to learn everything—and that’s what so many of them youngsters don’t understand.”
“Well, I am no longer a youngster.”
“No,” he conceded. “Are you leaving soon?”
“I am going on board directly,” I said. “I shall pick up one of my anchors and heave in to half-cable on the other directly my new crew comes on board and I shall be off at daylight to-morrow!”