"Are you sure you are quite comfortable?" said the groom affectionately.
"Quite," said the other.
The groom said no more, but in a quiet business-like fashion placed his
hands on the seaman's broad back, and shot him out into the road. Then
he snatched up the reins and drove off at a gallop.
Without the faintest hope of winning, Mr. Tucker, who realised clearly,
appearances notwithstanding, that he had fallen into a trap, rose after
a hurried rest and started on his fifth race that morning. The prize was
only a second-rate groom with plated buttons, who was waving cheery
farewells to him with a dingy top hat; but the boatswain would have
sooner had it than a silver tea-service.
He ran as he had never ran before in his life, but all to no purpose,
the trap stopping calmly a little further on to take up another
passenger, in whose favour the groom retired to the back seat; then,
with a final wave of the hand to him, they took a road to the left and
drove rapidly out of sight. The boatswain's watch was over.
LOW WATER
It was a calm, clear evening in late summer as the Elizabeth Ann, of
Pembray, scorning the expensive aid of a tug, threaded her way down the
London river under canvas. The crew were busy forward, and the master
and part-owner--a fussy little man, deeply imbued with a sense of his
own importance and cleverness--was at the wheel chatting with the mate.
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