Which again brings us to the Skipper, whose elaborate couch has already
been mentioned--he was a Hollander and one of the strongest, most gentle
and altogether most pleasant of men, who used to sit on the water-wagon
under the shed in the _cour_ and smoke his pipe quietly of an afternoon.
His stocky even tightly-knit person, in its heavy-trousers and jersey
sweater, culminated in a bronzed face which was at once as kind and firm
a piece of supernatural work as I think I ever knew. His voice was
agreeably modulated. He was utterly without affectation. He had three
sons. One evening a number of _gendarmes_ came to his house and told him
that he was arrested, "so my three sons and I threw them all out of the
window into the canal."
I can still see the opening smile, squared kindness of cheeks, eyes like
cool keys--his heart always with the Sea.
The little Machine-Fixer (_le petit bonhomme avec le bras casse_ as he
styled himself, referring to his little paralysed left arm) was so
perfectly different that I must let you see him next. He was slightly
taller than Garibaldi, about of a size with Monsieur Auguste. He and
Monsieur Auguste together were a fine sight, a sight which made me feel
that I came of a race of giants.
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