About the middle of the afternoon the coach stopped at the foot of a long winding ascent, steep and stony, and several of the passengers got out.

Forester, however, remained in, as he was tired of walking, and so Marco and the sailor walked together.

The sailor, finding how much Marco was interested in his stories, liked his company, and at length he asked Marco where he was going.

Marco told him.
"Ah, if you were only going on a voyage with me," said the sailor, "that would make a man of you.

I wouldn't go and be shut up with that old prig, poring over books forever." Marco was displeased to hear the sailor call his cousin an old prig, and he felt some compunctions of conscience about forming and continuing an intimacy with such a person.