Some people are fond of a stay-at-home life, but I always had a hankering after adventures." The captain shook his head.

"Ha!" he said, impressively.
"You've had a few in your time," said Mr.Chalk, looking at him, grudgingly; "Edward Tredgold was telling me so." "Man and boy, I was at sea forty-nine years," remarked the captain.
"Naturally things happened in that time; it would have been odd if they hadn't.

It's all in a lifetime." "Some lifetimes," said Mr.Chalk, gloomily.

"I'm fifty-one next year, and the only thing I ever had happen to me was seeing a man stop a runaway horse and cart." He shook his head solemnly over his monotonous career, and, gazing at a war-club from Samoa which hung over the fireplace, put a few leading questions to the captain concerning the manner in which it came into his possession.

When Prudence came in half an hour later he was still sitting there, listening with rapt attention to his host's tales of distant seas.
It was the first of many visits.