Here was a man, a live man. I was in no hurry to
go into the cabin, where I knew Wada was unpacking my things, so I
paced up and down the deck with the huge Mr. Pike. Huge he was in
all conscience, broad-shouldered, heavy-boned, and, despite the
profound stoop of his shoulders, fully six feet in height.
"You are a splendid figure of a man," I complimented.
"I was, I was," he muttered sadly, and I caught the whiff of whiskey
strong on the air.
I stole a look at his gnarled hands. Any finger would have made
three of mine. His wrist would have made three of my wrist.
"How much do you weigh?" I asked.
"Two hundred an' ten. But in my day, at my best, I tipped the scales
close to two-forty."
"And the Elsinore can't sail," I said, returning to the subject which
had roused him.
"I'll take you even, anything from a pound of tobacco to a month's
wages, she won't make it around in a hundred an' fifty days," he
answered. "Yet I've come round in the old Flyin' Cloud in eighty-
nine days--eighty-nine days, sir, from Sandy Hook to 'Frisco.
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