rrassing predilection. Extremes touch. He was
the oldest member by a long way in that Company, and I was, if I may say
so, its temporarily adopted baby. He had been a pilot longer than any
man in the boat could remember; thirty--forty years. He did not seem
certain himself, but it could be found out, he suggested, in the
archives of the Pilot-office. He had been pensioned off years before,
but he went out from force of habit; and, as my friend the patron of the
Company once confided to me in a whisper, "the old chap did no harm.
He was not in the way." They treated him with rough deference. One and
another would address some insignificant remark to him now and again,
but nobody really took any notice of what he had to say. He had survived
his strength, his usefulness, his very wisdom. He wore long, green,
worsted stockings, pulled up above the knee over his trousers, a sort of
woollen nightcap on his hairless cranium, and wooden clogs on his feet.
Without his hooded cloak he looked like a peasant. Half a dozen hands
would be extended to help him on board, but afterwards he was left
pretty much to his own thoughts. Of course he never did any work,
except, perhaps, to cast off some rope when hailed: "He, l'Ancien! let
go the halyards there, at your hand"--or some such request of an easy
kind.

No one took notice in any way of the chuckling within the shadow of the
hood. He kept it up for a long time with intense enjoyment. Obviously he
had preserved intact the innocence of mind which is easily amused. But
when his hilarity had exhausted itself, he made a professional remark in
a self-assertive but quavering voice:

"Can't expect much work on a night like this."

No one took it up. It was a mere truism. Nothing under canvas could be
expected to make a port on such an idle night of dreamy splendour and
spiritual stillness. We would have to glide idly to and fro, keeping our
station within the appointed bearings, and, unless a fresh breeze sprang
up with the dawn, we would land before sunrise on a small islet that,
within two miles of us, shone like a lump of frozen moonlight, to "break
a crust and take a pull at the wine bottle." I was familiar with the
procedure. The stout boat emptied of her crowd would nestle her buoyant,
capable side against the very rock--such is the perfectly smooth amenity
of the classic sea when in a gentle mood. The crust broken, and the
mouthful of wine swallowed--it was literally no more than t