"It's a hell of a life, but we've just got to mak' the best of it," says George, and he lounges off to join the talk in the Second's room.
I, too, sigh when he is gone. The best of it! Are these heroes of mine right after all?
"_Then wherefore sully the entrusted gem Of high and noble life with thoughts so sick? Why pierce high-fronted honour to the quick For nothing but a dream?_"
It is an hour since George the Fourth left me, and I have been discussing the matter with the Mate. It is a habit of mine to discuss matters with the Mate. Here is a man with no theories of life, no culture, as we understand the term, no touch of modern life at all; a man of apostolic simplicity, having gone down to the sea in ships since 1867. You can depend on the practicability of his conclusions, because he has dealt with facts--since 1867. "For," to quote Carlyle, "you are in contact with verities, to an unexampled degree, when you get upon the ocean, with intent to sail on it ... bottomless destruction raging beneath you and on all hands of you, if you neglect, for any reason, the methods of keeping _it_ down and making it float you to your aim!"
"'Tis a hard life, Mr. McAlnwick, an' we've just got to make the best of it."
"But, Mr. Honna, what is the best of it?"
"This! Give us your glass. One more, an' Nicholas is makin' a Stonewall Jackson in the panthry. He'll be in in a minute."
In a minute Nicholas arrives with a jug. Nicholas is the Steward, at sea since '69, a bronzed Greek from Salonika, a believer in dreams and sound investments at six per cent. He brings in a _Lloyd's News_, arrived by the last mail.
"Ah!" The Mate is certainly making the best of it. What are the exact components of the drink I cannot determine, but the resultant is without blemish; eggs, milk, brandy, rum--all these are in it, and the Mate's tongue loosens.
"Have you seen this about ze _Lorenzo_, mister?" asks Nicholas.
Nicholas (reading): "'Ze _Lorenzo_, bound from New Yawk to Cuba with coke, met with heavy gales off Cape Hatteras, and has put back into Norfolk in a disabled condition. Two blades of her propeller are broken, and she is leaking badly amidships. She is to undergo a special survey before proceeding further.'"