“It will be three weeks to-morrow,” he replied.
“What are your certificates?”
“I have four in my pocket,” he answered, producing them; and I found that he had served in the several capacities of boatswain, sailmaker, and able seaman aboard sailing-vessels belonging to some of the best firms in London.
“How long have you been at sea?”
“Thirty years,” he replied.
“And is it possible,” said I, running my eye over his neat suit of pilot cloth, his clean blue shirt, and silk handkerchief, and admiring his unmistakably sailorly appearance, and the frank expression in his tanned face, “that in this age, when one hears so many complaints of the difficulty of procuring good seamen, that a man who has been thirty years at sea, filled responsible posts, and holds honest vouchers to his efficiency and good conduct, cannot get a ship! What countryman are you?”
“A Scotchman—an Aberdeen man.”
“Wouldn’t the last ship you were in take you again?”
“She discharged at Cardiff, and is now for sale. My wife lives just out of the Commercial Road, and that’s why I’m in London,” he answered. “I had only been home a week when I tried to get a ship again, for I’m a poor man.”
“What are you willing to ship as?”