She was silent while we walked aft, and I supposed she was thinking of the sailor forward. Just as we gained the poop she turned her head and looked up at me, saying: “And you were a sailor once and had to live in a place like that?” “I am a sailor yet, I believe, and I will probably never be anything else, except a fool, also,” I answered; “but as for living in places like our fo’castle, I must confess that I’ve spent at least ten years in them.” She let go my arm and, I fancied, gave a hopeless little sigh. “I think I’d rather be a cow and live in a comfortable barn,” she remarked, rather drily. “No objection on my part,” I answered, quickly. Then she thanked me for going with her, and joined the skipper, who had been standing near the quarter-rail watching us intently. He saw her safely aft to the companionway and then returned to where I stood. He was silent for some time and then looked at me and smiled. I have always believed the old skipper was something of a mind-reader. “Women are queer things,” he said. I said nothing, but looked an affirmative answer. “But with man,” he went on, “more is to be hoped from. He should not let his thoughts dwell too much on the necessity of his getting married and propagating his species. It is natural for a woman to wish to get married for many reasons; but a man should not let this be the principal object in his life. That this is, unfortunately, not always the case is proved by his thoughts and actions. “When you get to be an old shellback, like me, you will see that, while love of women is good enough to a certain extent, there are other duties for an honest man to perform before his cruise is out. “Now, take yourself, for instance. You never made a fool of yourself about women. And that’s the reason you had the _Southern Cross_--before you lost her. Whereas, if you were like O’Toole, who is always reading story-books, where would you be to-day? Story-books and women have kept him down, and one is about the same thing as the other. I’ve had hundreds of story-books sent aboard here by those women folks at the sailors’ mission, and one and all had the getting married and propagation of species as the central object for the yarn. Sometimes the hero would differ a little in regards to the details of getting the weather gauge of the sweet, beautiful, fine, handsome girl--but the ends were all alike. “No, sir, Mr. Gore, take my word for it, story-books and women, women and story-books--they are all the same in the end. They’ve kept O’Toole down for having them and you’ve worked your way up--to a certain extent--by not having them. A man should stick to his duty and let them alone until he gets old enough to understand them as I do.” He was a rough, outspoken man, was old Captain Crojack. CHAPTER VIII.