We will say, however, that the craft is successfully launched and with sails full spread runs proudly before a light wind. In such a case invariably all the old sailors will look on with a keen squint and a certain tremor of satisfaction at seeing her behave so gallantly. Such being the case, the builder is at liberty to make a few sententious remarks anent the art of shipbuilding--not otherwise. And he may then retire after a time, proud in his knowledge and his very certain triumph over those who would have scoffed had they had the slightest opportunity. I troubled to ask a number of these worthies from time to time whether, assuming they were young again, they would choose a sea-faring life. “Indeed I would, my boy,” one answered me one morning. And another: “Not I. If I were to sail four thousand times I’d be as seasick the last trip as on the first day out. Every blessed trip I made for the first five years I nearly died of seasickness.” “Why did you keep it up, then?” I asked. “Well, when I’d get into port everybody would ask: ‘Well, how did you like it? Are you going again?’ ‘Of course I am,’ I would answer, and went from pure shamefacedness and not to be outdone. After a while I didn’t mind it so much, and finally kept to it ’cause I couldn’t do anything else.” One of the old basket makers at the Harbor had occupied a rolling chair in the hospital and made baskets for nearly thirty-nine years. There was still another, ninety-three years of age, who would have been there forty years the summer I was there. And withal he was a most ingenious basket maker. One of the old salts kept an eating-stand where appetizing lunches were served, and he bore the distinction of having rounded the Horn forty-nine times in a sailing vessel. He was one of the few who possessed his soul in patience, resting content with his lot and turning to fate a gentle and smiling face. “Will you tell me of an adventure at sea?” I once asked him. “I could,” he answered, “but I would rather tell you of thirteen peaceful years here. I came here when I was seventy, though at sixty, when I was weathering a terrible storm around the Cape with little hope of ever seeing the rising sun, I promised myself that if ever I reached home again I would stay there. But I didn’t know myself even then. My destiny was to remain on the sea for ten years more, with this Harbor for my few remaining years. At that, if I were young I would go to sea again, I believe. It’s the only life for me.”