Quotation from: A Set of Six

Written by: Joseph Conrad


"The fuss that was made while that ship was building! Let's have this a
little stronger, and that a little heavier; and hadn't that other thing
better be changed for something a little thicker. The builders entered
into the spirit of the game, and there she was, growing into the
clumsiest, heaviest ship of her size right before all their eyes,
without anybody becoming aware of it somehow. She was to be 2,000
tons register, or a little over; no less on any account. But see what
happens. When they came to measure her she turned out 1,999 tons and
a fraction. General consternation! And they say old Mr. Apse was so
annoyed when they told him that he took to his bed and died. The old
gentleman had retired from the firm twenty-five years before, and
was ninety-six years old if a day, so his death wasn't, perhaps, so
surprising. Still Mr. Lucian Apse was convinced that his father would
have lived to a hundred. So we may put him at the head of the list. Next
comes the poor devil of a shipwright that brute caught and squashed as
she went off the ways. They called it the launch of a ship, but I've
heard people say that, from the wailing and yelling and scrambling out
of the way, it was more like letting a devil loose upon the river.
She snapped all her checks like pack-thread, and went for the tugs in
attendance like a fury. Before anybody could see what she was up to she
sent one of them to the bottom, and laid up another for three months'
repairs. One of her cables parted, and then, suddenly--you couldn't tell
why--she let herself be brought up with the other as quiet as a lamb.

PREVIOUS GROUP HOME SITE HOME NEXT
Old Dominion University CS Dept
Designed by Joan A. Smith for the CRATE project
Created: 2007-2-22T12:35:29Z
Part of the CratePreservation Project
Change Tag: ~~ 0 ~~
Part of a series of experiments in web preservation under the direction of Michael L. Nelson, Ph.D.