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| THERE are human beings who seem to regard the place | |
| as craftily as we do—who seem to feel that it is a | |
| good place to come home to. On what a river; | |
| wide—twinkling like a chopped sea under some | |
| of the finest shipping in the | 5 |
| |
| world: the square-rigged four-master, the liner, the | |
| battleship like the two-thirds submerged section of | |
| an iceberg; the tug—strong-moving thing, dip- | |
| ping and pushing, the bell striking as it comes; the | |
| steam yacht, lying like a new made arrow on the | 10 |
| |
| stream; the ferry-boat—a head assigned, one to | |
| each compartment, making a row of chessmen set | |
| for play. When the wind is from the east, the | |
| smell is of apples; of hay, the aroma increased and | |
| decreased suddenly as the wind changes; | 15 |
| |
| of rope; of mountain leaves for florists. When it is | |
| from the west, it is an elixir. There is oc- | |
| casionally a parokeet | |
| arrived from Brazil, clasping and clawing; or a | |
| monkey—tail and feet in readiness for an over- | 20 |
| |
| ture. All palms and tail; how delightful! There is | |
| the sea, moving the bulkhead with its horse | |
| strength; and the multiplicity of rudders and pro- | |
| pellors; the signals, shrill, questioning, per- | |
| emptory, diverse; the wharf cats and the barge dogs—it | 25 |
| |
| is easy to overestimate the value of such things. | |
| One does not live in such a place from motives of | |
| expediency but because to one who has been ac- | |
| customed to it, shipping is the most congenial thing in the world. | |
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