"He doesn't look like the same man," said Mrs. Pentle. "When I last saw him his jaws were set like steel, his eyes like hard lights back in his head, and his voice was rough. And his skin was like something worn raw by the beating of hammers on it. He looked like a middle-aged man then, and now--why, he doesn't look twenty-two now!" "He ain't much more," said Flaxley. Just then Peter up-ended a big dry-goods case, ripped off a boarded side, tore away a layer of thick paper, and tossed onto a table ten feet away a bolt of cloth that Mrs. Pentle knew weighed fifty pounds; and he did not even bend his knees to do it. "A powerful brute," said Henston. "Brute?" said Mrs. Pentle. "I mean--" said Henston; but Mrs. Pentle had stepped inside the shipping-room door. Peter was whistling; but he had to up-end another case. It took a little effort, this one, and he stopped his whistling. "Up--up--upsie boy!" cooed Peter. It did not up. He set himself and tugged. He grew impatient. "Come here, you loafer!" he shouted, and braced and heaved. The case came up. "When Peter takes to heavin' in earnest they generally come," said Flaxley. While old Flaxley stood there looking from Peter to Mrs. Pentle he couldn't help thinking--much as he respected her--he couldn't help wondering if she was comparing Peter to Pentle that was dead and gone. "If she is," thought Flaxley, "Lord help the memory o' Pentle--who was never any Apoller for build and about as much blood in him as a man'd find in four pounds of excelsior packin'." Peter was whistling again and carolling and heaving facetious comment at anybody and everybody, when he felt the silence. He looked round and saw Mrs. Pentle. "How do you do, captain?" Peter shifted his cotton-hook from right hand to left and shook her extended hand. "I'm cert'nly glad to see you again, Mrs. Pentle." "How are you getting on, captain?" "Fine--fine!" "The work is not too hard?" "Hard?" Peter smiled. "Often enough I think of those fellows out on the Banks turning out on a good, cold, blizzardy day in winter, Mrs. Pentle--turning out at four o'clock in the mornin' and goin' into a cold hold with the ice and baitin' up, so's to be ready to go over the side in the dory by the first o' the daylight. And then all day long it's heave and haul trawls, with maybe a sea that they don't know what minute'll get 'em. An' dressin' down a deck-load o' fish on top o' that afore they turn in of a night--an' maybe standin' watch in the night again, standin' to the wheel beatin' home in a nor'wester, when it's so cold you have to wear a woollen mask over your face with two holes to see through and another to breathe through, and your watch-mates have to relieve you--and you them--every six or eight minutes to keep from freezin' to death! "Hard work, Mrs. Pentle!" It was too ridiculous--Peter laughed aloud this time.