But there were coastwise skippers I would have returned and killed when a man's strength came to me, only the lines of my life were cast at the time in other places.

I did return, not long ago, but unfortunately the skippers were dead, all but one, a mate in the old days, a skipper when I met him, and when I left him a cripple who would never walk again." "But you who read Spencer and Darwin and have never seen the inside of a school, how did you learn to read and write ?" I queried.
"In the English merchant service.

Cabin-boy at twelve, ship's boy at fourteen, ordinary seamen at sixteen, able seaman at seventeen, and cock of the fo'c'sle, infinite ambition and infinite loneliness, receiving neither help nor sympathy, I did it all for myself--navigation, mathematics, science, literature, and what not.

And of what use has it been?
Master and owner of a ship at the top of my life, as you say, when I am beginning to diminish and die.

Paltry, isn't it?
And when the sun was up I was scorched, and because I had no root I withered away." "But history tells of slaves who rose to the purple," I chided.
"And history tells of opportunities that came to the slaves who rose to the purple," he answered grimly.