"My name's Abernethy," he suddenly volunteered."Isaiah Abernethy.The fellow that owns her is Goldberg.Abraham Goldberg.Real estate man.""Cleggett began to get an insight into Mr.Abernethy's peculiar ideas concerning conversation.A native spirit of independence prevented Mr.Abernethy from dealing with an interlocutor's remarks in the sequence that seemed to be desired by the interlocutor.He took a selection of utterances into his mind, rolled them over together, and replied in accordance with some esoteric system of his own.
"Where is Mr.Goldberg's office?" asked Cleggett.
"You've come to the proper party to get set right about ships," said Mr.Abernethy, complacently."Either you was sent to me by someone that knows I'm the proper party to set you right about ships, or else you got an eye in your own head that can recognize a man that comes of a seafarin' fambly.""You ARE an old sailor, then? Maybe you are an old skipper? Perhaps you're one of the retired Long Island sea captains we're always hearing so much about?""So fur as sailin' her around the world is concerned," said Mr.
Abernethy, glancing over the hulk, "if she was fixed up she could be sailed anywheres--anywheres!""What would you call her--a schooner?"
"This here Goldberg," said Mr.Abernethy, "has his office over town right accost from the railroad depot."And with that he put his fishing pole over his shoulder and prepared to leave--a tall, strong-looking old man with long legs and knotty wrists, who moved across the deck with surprising spryness.At the gangplank he sang out without turning his head:
"As far as my bein' a skipper's concerned, they's no law agin' callin' me Cap'n Abernethy if you want to.I come of a seafarin' fambly."He crossed the platform; when he had gone thirty yards further he stopped, turned around, and shouted:
"Is she a schooner, hey? You want to know is she a schooner? If you was askin' me, she ain't NOTHIN' now.But if you was to ask me again I might say she COULD be schooner-rigged.Lots of boats IS schooner-rigged."There are affinities between atom and atom, between man and woman, between man and man.There are also affinities between men and things-if you choose to call a ship, which has a spirit of its own, merely a thing.There must have been this affinity between Cleggett and the Jasper B.Only an unusual person would have thought of buying her.But Cleggett loved her at first sight.
Within an hour after he had first seen her he was in Mr.Abraham Goldberg's office.
As he was concluding his purchase--Mr.Goldberg having phoned Cleggett's bankers--he was surprised to discover that he was buying about half an acre of Long Island real estate along with her.For that matter he had thought it a little odd in the first place when he had been directed to a real estate agent as the owner of the craft.But as he knew very little about business, and nothing at all about ships, he assumed that perhaps it was quite the usual thing for real estate dealers to buy and sell shipsabutting on the coast of Long Island.
"I had only intended to buy the vessel," said Cleggett."I don't know that I'll be able to use the land."Mr.Goldberg looked at Cleggett with a slight start, as if he were not sure that he had heard aright, and opened his mouth as if to say something.But nothing came of it--not just then, at least.When the last signature had been written, and Clegget's check had been folded by Mr.Goldberg's plump, bejeweled fingers and put into Mr.Goldberg's pocketbook, Mr.Goldberg remarked:
"You say you can't use the ship?"
"No; the land.I'm surprised to find that the land goes with the ship." "Why, it doesn't," said Mr.Goldberg."It's the ship that goes with theland.She was on the land when I bought the plot, and I just left her there.Nobody's paid any attention to her for years."The words "on the land" grated on Cleggett."You mean on the water, don't you?""In the mud, then," suggested Mr.Goldberg."But she'll sail all right," said Cleggett.
"I suppose if she was decorated up with sails and things she'd sail.Figuring on sailing her anywhere in particular?""Subtly irritated, Cleggett answered: "Oh, no, no! Not anywhere in particular!""Going to live on her this summer?--Outdoor sleeping room, and all that?""I'm thinking of it."
"You could turn her into a house boat easy enough.I had a friend who turned an old barge like that into a house boat and had a lot of fun with her.""Barge?" Cleggett rose and buttoned his coat; the conversation was somehow growing more and more distasteful to him."You wouldn't call the Jasper B.a BARGE, would you?""Well, you wouldn't call her a YACHT, would you?" said Mr.
Goldberg.
"Perhaps not," admitted Cleggett, "perhaps not.She's more like a bark than a yacht.""A bark? I dunno.Always thought a bark was bigger.A scow's more her size, ain't it?""Scow?" Cleggett frowned.The Jasper B.a scow! "You mean a schooner, don't you?""Schooner?" Mr.Goldberg grinned good-naturedly at his departing customer."A kind of a schooner-scow, huh?""No, sir, a schooner!" said Cleggett, reddening, and turning in the doorway."Understand me, Mr.Goldberg, a schooner, sir!A schooner!" And standing with a frown on his face until every vestige of the smile had died from Mr.Goldberg's lips, Cleggett repeated once more:"Aschooner, Mr.Goldberg!"
