He started to untie the painter. Somehow his perversity made me furious.
“Drop it!” I repeated; “you’re not going to leave this sloop till I do—unless you swim ashore.”
“Well, you just try stopping me,” he snarled, his temper getting the better for the moment of his usual caution. Paul was a bigger and heavier, as well as an older fellow than I; but he had never dared try fisticuffs with me.
I sprang up and let the tiller bang. Luckily there was so little wind that the sloop took no harm. “Get away from there!” I cried.
“I tell you I am going ashore now.”
“You’re not.”
“I am; and it won’t be healthy for you to try to stop me, Clint Webb.”
I know very well that this is a bad way to begin my story; I expect you will be disgusted with me right at the start. But what am I to do? I have started out to narrate the incidents which occurred and the various changes that have come into my life since this very September evening; and truth compels me to begin with this quarrel. For from this time dated the purpose which inspired my future life.
So, I hope that the reader will bear with me, even though I introduce much the worse side of my character first. Facts are stubborn things, and I have in this introduction to set down some very stubborn and unpleasant facts.
I sprang up, as I say, and left the tiller, and as Paul seemed to have no intention of obeying me, I advanced upon him threateningly. We were both enraged.