True that when I do make him speak to me, there is his dear old self, the quick eye, the kind voice.

Could hardly be other to his old Franklin.

But what's the good?
Eyes, voice, everything's miles away.
And for all that I take good care never to address him when the poop isn't clear.

Yes! Only we two and nothing but the sea with us.

You think it would be all right; the only chief mate he ever had--Mr.
Franklin here and Mr.Franklin there--when anything went wrong the first word you would hear about the decks was 'Franklin!'-- I am thirteen years older than he is--you would think it would be all right, wouldn't you?
Only we two on this poop on which we saw each other first--he a young master--told me that he thought I would suit him very well--we two, and thirty-one days out at sea, and it's no good! It's like talking to a man standing on shore.