So many doublings and devices
were required to get to sea with an unseaworthy ship
and a captain that was "wanted." Nor might even these
have sufficed, but for the fact that Hadden was a
public character, and the whole cruise regarded with an
eye of indulgence as one of Tom's engaging
eccentricities. The ship, besides, had been a yacht
before: and it came the more natural to allow her still
some of the dangerous liberties of her old employment.
A strange ship they had made of it, her lofty spars
disfigured with patched canvas, her panelled cabin
fitted for a traderoom with rude shelves. And the life
they led in that anomalous schooner was no less curious
than herself Amalu alone berthed forward; the rest
occupied staterooms, camped upon the satin divans, and
sat down in Grant Sanderson's parquetry smoking-room to
meals of junk and potatoes, bad of their kind, and
often scant in quantity. Hemstead grumbled; Tommy had
occasional moments of revolt, and increased the
ordinary by a few haphazard tins or a bottle of his own
brown sherry.
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