"
He is precisely the same kind of man to-day, plus twenty years of
experience. The figure is still the figure of his youth, the hickory a
little better seasoned, perhaps, and the steel and whalebone a little
harder, but they have lost none of their spring and vitality. The ratio
of promotion has also been kept up. That he should now rank as the most
expert pilot on the station was quite to be expected. He could have
filled as well a commander's place on the bridge, had he chosen to work
along those lines.
And the modesty of the man!
Nothing that he has done, or can still do, has ever stretched his hat
measure or swelled any part of his thinking apparatus. The old pilot-cap
is still number seven, and the sensible head beneath it number seven,
too. It could be number eight, or nine, or even ten, if it had expanded
in proportion to the heroic quality of many of his deeds. During the
light-house days, for instance, when some sudden, shift of wind would
churn the long rollers into bobbles and then into frenzied seas that
smothered the Ledge in white suds, if a life-boat was to be launched in
the boiling surf, the last man to jump aboard, after a mighty push with
his long hindmost leg, was sure to be this same bundle of whalebone and
hickory.
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