"In that
handful of houses they fancy that they comprehend the universe."
I smiled, and waited for him to go on.
"I am an old man, as you can see," he continued, "and I have
been a shipmaster the greater part of my life,--forty-three years
in all. You may not think it, but I am above eighty years of age."
He did not look so old, and I hastened to say so.
"You must have left the sea a good many years ago, then,
Captain Littlepage?" I said.
"I should have been serviceable at least five or six years
more," he answered. "My acquaintance with certain--my experience
upon a certain occasion, I might say, gave rise to prejudice. I do
not mind telling you that I chanced to learn of one of the greatest
discoveries that man has ever made."
Now we were approaching dangerous ground, but a sudden sense
of his sufferings at the hands of the ignorant came to my help, and
I asked to hear more with all the deference I really felt. A
swallow flew into the schoolhouse at this moment as if a kingbird
were after it, and beat itself against the walls for a minute, and
escaped again to the open air; but Captain Littlepage took no
notice whatever of the flurry.
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