He didn’t say a thing, except that he desired sincerely to embark on the Acushnet with your father. I assure you, he didn’t say another word. Yet it’s in front of his name that you mark down “Squaller”? In front of his name alone? When there are three Portuguese and an Englishman, on top of twenty-two other Americans, it would be quite remarkable if you didn’t find anything to say about anyone else. So what’s this all about, marking something down in front of his name alone? (Another bad turn his own eyes have done him, I suspect.) You mean he’ll be hard to handle? Yes, of course he will be. Seeing as you examined him more closely than the others, miss, how could you possibly expect this young man to play polo like the rest of us, on an ordinary field? Do you want me to tell you, miss? It wasn’t Herman you were thinking about when you wrote down “Squaller.” There was nothing facing you but two eyes, two eyes looking right past you. After all, it doesn’t concern you when a boy looks right past you, since you’re always sure, in the long run, to attract his attention back to what you really are: plain stuff, but rosy-cheeked under your black silk bonnet, with your golden hair spilling out. No, miss, it was the captain you had in mind. And that’s another matter altogether.

Tell me, miss, has he ever tied you to the mast during a storm? Has he ever lashed you? Yes, I mean with a whiplash, on your bare skin? Has he ever stuffed you down in the hold, bound hand and foot, with only a drop of water to drink? No? Well, I tell you, he does do all these things! And you know it. And we haven’t even mentioned the fact that he’s a rotten commander. He’s one of those . . . just the way he says “yes” or “at your service” feels like an insult. Two hundred pounds of sullen flesh and fifty pounds of corrosive muscle. Ah, miss, he and Herman will never get along, and you saw it right away. But you’re a true captain’s daughter, and even though the lad’s good-looking—with his broad shoulders and his fierce, shy, poet’s eyes—it’s him you label as the guilty one. So much the worse for you, Miss Valentine; he was worth the taking. And if you’d wanted him, he would have curled up in your hand like a baby sparrow, just in the nick of time.

When boys like Herman head off to sea, it’s because they haven’t had a girl next to them who’s beautiful enough. What a shame. As you yourself note at the bottom of the list, the Acushnet sailed from Fairhaven on January 3, 1841, bound for the Pacific. He went off with the captain. Not with you. So now you see what it costs a young woman to believe that real seamanship has to be tough, in the tradition of the Captain Blighs of this world. And, as for me now, writing the story of Herman’s life—you’re making me ruin a love scene. You’re the first really desirable girl he’s come across. I was getting to like you. Now I hold it against you. He’s gone off with the captain. At the captain’s side, for fifteen months, he plows back and forth across the vast South Seas, never once setting foot on shore. Now here’s a proper ration of saltwater for you, my boy. If this is what you were after, here’s a really good one. This time, you ought to be satisfied.