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