Real estate man." "Cleggett began to get an insight into Mr.Abernethy's peculiar ideas concerning conversation.

A native spirit of independence prevented Mr.
Abernethy from dealing with an interlocutor's remarks in the sequence that seemed to be desired by the interlocutor.

He took a selection of utterances into his mind, rolled them over together, and replied in accordance with some esoteric system of his own.
"Where is Mr.Goldberg's office ?" asked Cleggett.
"You've come to the proper party to get set right about ships," said Mr.Abernethy, complacently.

"Either you was sent to me by someone that knows I'm the proper party to set you right about ships, or else you got an eye in your own head that can recognize a man that comes of a seafarin' fambly." "You ARE an old sailor, then?
Maybe you are an old skipper?
Perhaps you're one of the retired Long Island sea captains we're always hearing so much about ?" "So fur as sailin' her around the world is concerned," said Mr.
Abernethy, glancing over the hulk, "if she was fixed up she could be sailed anywheres--anywheres!" "What would you call her--a schooner ?" "This here Goldberg," said Mr.Abernethy, "has his office over town right accost from the railroad depot." And with that he put his fishing pole over his shoulder and prepared to leave--a tall, strong-looking old man with long legs and knotty wrists, who moved across the deck with surprising spryness.

At the gangplank he sang out without turning his head: "As far as my bein' a skipper's concerned, they's no law agin' callin' me Cap'n Abernethy if you want to.