Old Mr. Rarx was not a pleasant man to look at, nor yet to talk to, or to
be with, for no one could help seeing that he was a sordid and selfish
character, and that he had warped further and further out of the straight
with time. Not but what he was on his best behaviour with us, as
everybody was; for we had no bickering among us, for'ard or aft. I only
mean to say, he was not the man one would have chosen for a messmate. If
choice there had been, one might even have gone a few points out of one's
course, to say, "No! Not him!" But, there was one curious inconsistency
in Mr. Rarx. That was, that he took an astonishing interest in the
child. He looked, and I may add, he was, one of the last of men to care
at all for a child, or to care much for any human creature. Still, he
went so far as to be habitually uneasy, if the child was long on deck,
out of his sight. He was always afraid of her falling overboard, or
falling down a hatchway, or of a block or what not coming down upon her
from the rigging in the working of the ship, or of her getting some hurt
or other.
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