"Half the stores were wrong; I'll wring John Smith's neck for him some of these days.

Then two newspaper beasts came down, and tried to raise copy out of me, till I threatened them with the first thing handy; and then some kind of missionary bug, wanting to work his passage to Raiatea or somewhere.

I told him I would take him off the wharf with the butt end of my boot, and he went away cursing.

This vessel's been depreciated by the look of him." While the captain spoke, with his strange, humorous, arrogant abruptness, I observed Jim to be sizing him up, like a thing at once quaint and familiar, and with a scrutiny that was both curious and knowing.
"One word, dear boy," he said, turning suddenly to me.

And when he had drawn me on deck, "That man," says he, "will carry sail till your hair grows white; but never you let on, never breathe a word.