“Can’t be done, Mr. Harlan,” he said, pressing the ashes into the bowl of his pipe and looking around the group of intent listeners with a thoughtful expression. “Time was when I’d have liked a job of that sort, because it’s exciting to fight a strong ocean with a weak ship. But my whole heart is in the Seagull, and I can’t an’ won’t leave her.”
Just then his eyes fell upon me and brightened.
“There’s no reason, howsomever,” he added, “why Sam can’t undertake your commission. We won’t be likely to need him this winter, at all.”
Mr. Harlan frowned; then looked toward me curiously.
“Would you really recommend a boy like Sam for such an important undertaking?” he asked.
“Why not, sir?” replied my father. “Sam’s as good a navigator as I am, an’ he’s a brave lad an’ cool-headed, as has been proved. All he lacks is experience in working a ship; but he can take my own mate, Ned Britton, along, and there’s not a better sailing-master to be had on the two oceans.”
The agent began to look interested. He revolved the matter in his mind for a time and then turned to me and asked, abruptly:
“Would you go, sir?”
I had been thinking, too, for the proposition had come with startling suddenness.
“On one condition,” said I.