became a dirty, spotted thing,
just a common every-day part of his business.

He himself was nothing but business. His business was with ships and the
sea, and yet he had never once in his life taken a long sea voyage. "Why
doesn't he? Why does he like only tiresome things?" I argued secretly to
myself. "Why does he always come ashore?" He always did. In my memories
of ships sailing I see him always there on deck talking to the captain,
scowling, wrinkling his eyes over the smoke of his cigar, but always
coming down the gang-plank at the end, unconcernedly turning his back on
all the excitement and going back to his warehouse.

He could get excited about ships, but only in the queerest way that had
something to do with his business. Late one night from my bed I heard
his voice downstairs, cutting and snarling through other voices. I got
out of bed and stole downstairs and along the half-lit hall to the
library door, and there from behind the curtain I watched what was going
on inside. The library was full of men, grave, courteous-looking
gentlemen, some of them angry, some merely amused. My father was leaning
over his table talking of ships, of mysterious things that he said must
be done with battleships and tariffs.

"And mark me, gentlemen," he cried. "If we don't do these things in time
American sails will be swept from the seas!"

Listening, I got a picture of an immense broom reaching out of the
clouds and sweeping American ships off the ocean. But I could make
nothing of this at the time. I only watched his face and eyes and his
fist that came down with a crash on the table. And I was afraid of my
father.

When ships lay at his dock the captains often came up to dinner. But
even these marvelous creatures lost in my father's presence all that Sam
had given them in my eyes. They did not like my mother, they ate in
uneasy silence, or spoke gruffly of their dull affairs. Once or twice I
heard talk of mutinies, of sailors shot down or put in irons, but all in
a matter-of-fact sort of way. Mere grunts came from my father. Steadily
drearier grew the ocean, flatter all the heathen lands.

One stout, red-faced captain, jovial even in spite of my mother, would
annoy me frightfully by joking about my going to sea. He was always
asking me when I meant to run away and be "a bloody pirate." He took it
for granted I liked the sea, was thrilled by the sea, when the truth of
it was that I hated the sea! It was business now,