Quotation from: Lord Jim

Written by: Joseph Conrad


'"Man overboard," said a deep voice behind me. Turning round, I saw a
fellow I knew slightly, a West Australian; Chester was his name. He,
too, had been looking after Jim. He was a man with an immense girth of
chest, a rugged, clean-shaved face of mahogany colour, and two blunt
tufts of iron-grey, thick, wiry hairs on his upper lip. He had
been pearler, wrecker, trader, whaler too, I believe; in his own
words--anything and everything a man may be at sea, but a pirate. The
Pacific, north and south, was his proper hunting-ground; but he had
wandered so far afield looking for a cheap steamer to buy. Lately he
had discovered--so he said--a guano island somewhere, but its approaches
were dangerous, and the anchorage, such as it was, could not be
considered safe, to say the least of it. "As good as a gold-mine," he
would exclaim. "Right bang in the middle of the Walpole Reefs, and if
it's true enough that you can get no holding-ground anywhere in less
than forty fathom, then what of that? There are the hurricanes, too. But
it's a first-rate thing. As good as a gold-mine--better! Yet there's not
a fool of them that will see it. I can't get a skipper or a shipowner
to go near the place. So I made up my mind to cart the blessed stuff
myself." . . . This was what he required a steamer for, and I knew he
was just then negotiating enthusiastically with a Parsee firm for an
old, brig-rigged, sea-anachronism of ninety horse-power. We had met and
spoken together several times. He looked knowingly after Jim. "Takes
it to heart?" he asked scornfully. "Very much," I said. "Then he's no
good," he opined. "What's all the to-do about? A bit of ass's skin. That
never yet made a man. You must see things exactly as they are--if you
don't, you may just as well give in at once. You will never do anything
in this world. Look at me. I made it a practice never to take anything
to heart." "Yes," I said, "you see things as they are." "I wish I could
see my partner coming along, that's what I wish to see," he said. "Know
my partner? Old Robinson. Yes; _the_ Robinson. Don't _you_ know? The
notorious Robinson. The man who smuggled more opium and bagged more
seals in his time than any loose Johnny now alive. They say he used to
board the sealing-schooners up Alaska way when the fog was so thick that
the Lord God, He alone, could tell one man from another. Holy-Terror
Robinson. That's the man. He is with me in that guano thing. The best
chance he ever came across in his life." He put his lips to my ear.
"Cannibal?--well, they used to give him the name years and years ago.
You remember the story? A shipwreck on the west side of Stewart Island;
that's right; seven of them got ashore, and it seems they did not get
on very well together. Some men are too cantankerous for anything--don't
know how to make the best of a bad job--don't see things as they are--as
they _are_, my boy! And then what's the consequence? Obvious! Trouble,
trouble; as likely as not a knock on the head; and serve 'em right too.
That sort is the most useful when it's dead. The story goes that a boat
of Her Majesty's ship Wolverine found him kneeling on the kelp, naked as
the day he was born, and chanting some psalm-tune or other; light snow
was falling at the time. He waited till the boat was an oar's length
from the shore, and then up and away. They chased him for an hour up and
down the boulders, till a marihe flung a stone that took him behind
the ear providentially and knocked him senseless. Alone? Of course. But
that's like that tale of sealing-schooners; the Lord God knows the right
and the wrong of that story. The cutter did not investigate much. They
wrapped him in a boat-cloak and took him off as quick as they could,
with a dark night coming on, the weather threatening, and the ship
firing recall guns every five minutes. Three weeks afterwards he was as
well as ever. He didn't allow any fuss that was made on shore to upset
him; he just shut his lips tight, and let people screech. It was bad
enough to have lost his ship, and all he was worth besides, without
paying attention to the hard names they called him. That's the man for
me." He lifted his arm for a signal to some one down the street. "He's
got a little money, so I had to let him into my thing. Had to! It
would have been sinful to throw away such a find, and I was cleaned out
myself. It cut me to the quick, but I could see the matter just as
it was, and if I _must_ share--thinks I--with any man, then give me
Robinson. I left him at breakfast in the hotel to come to court, because
I've an idea. . . . Ah! Good morning, Captain Robinson. . . . Friend of
mine, Captain Robinson."

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