duct to the crew I cannot stomach.
I guess we'll separate.' I didn't care about the berth, you may be sure;
but I felt kind of mean; and if he made one kind of stink, I thought
I could make another. So I said I would go ashore and see how things
stood; went, found I was all right, and came aboard again on the top
rail.--'Are you getting your traps together, Mr. Nares?' says the old
man.--'No,' says I, 'I don't know as we'll separate much before 'Frisco;
at least,' I said, 'it's a point for your consideration. I'm very
willing to say good-by to the Maria, but I don't know whether you'll
care to start me out with three months' wages.' He got his money-box
right away. 'My son,' says he, 'I think it cheap at the money.' He had
me there."

It was a singular tale for a man to tell of himself; above all, in the
midst of our discussion; but it was quite in character for Nares. I
never made a good hit in our disputes, I never justly resented any act
or speech of his, but what I found it long after carefully posted in his
day-book and reckoned (here was the man's oddity) to my credit. It was
the same with his father, whom he had hated; he would give a sketch of
the old fellow, frank and credible, and yet so honestly touched that
it was charming. I have never met a man so strangely constituted: to
possess a reason of the most equal justice, to have his nerves at the
same time quivering with petty spite, and to act upon the nerves and not
the reason.

A kindred wonder in my eyes was the nature of his courage. There was
never a braver man: he went out to welcome danger; an emergency (came it
never so sudden) strung him like a tonic. And yet, upon the other hand,
I have known none so nervous, so oppressed with possibilities, looking
upon the world at large, and the life of a sailor in particular, with
so constant and haggard a consideration of the ugly chances. All
his courage was in blood, not merely cold, but icy with reasoned
apprehension. He would lay our little craft rail under, and "hang on" in
a squall, until I gave myself up for lost, and the men were rushing
to their stations of their own accord. "There," he would say, "I guess
there's not a man on board would have hung on as long as I did that
time; they'll have to give up thinking me no schooner sailor. I guess
I can shave just as near capsizing as any other captain of this vessel,
drunk or sober." And then he would fall to repining and wishing himself
well out of the