I accidentally went out on the
'Duncan McDonald.' How old would you take me to be?"
"Fifty or fifty-five," said Enoch.
"Thanks, captain, I know I must look all of that; but, let me see,
forty-five, fifty-five, sixty-five, seventy--seventy--what year is
this?"
"Seventy-three."
"Seventy-three. Well, I'm only twenty-eight now."
"Impossible! Why, man, you're as gray as I am, and I'm twice that."
"I was born in forty-five, just the same. My father was a sea captain in
the old clipper days, and a long time after. He was in the West India
trade when the war broke out, and as he had been educated in the navy,
enlisted at once. It was on one of the gunboats before Vicksburg that he
was killed. My mother came of a well-to-do family of merchants, the
Clarks of Boston, and--to make a long story short--died in sixty-six,
leaving me considerable money.
"An itching to travel, plenty of money, my majority, and no ties at
home, sent me away from college to roam, and so one spring morning in
sixty-seven found me sitting lazily in the stern of a little pleasure
boat off Fort Point in the Golden Gate, listlessly watching a steam
whaler come in from the Pacific.
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