The First Mate

"Well, young man, what do you think of her?" The question was addressed to me in a very pleasantly modulated female voice, carrying just the slightest suspicion of an American accent. For the fraction of a second I was a wee bit startled. I had not had the ghost of a suspicion that anyone was nearer me than the gang of labourers who were busily engaged in unloading a big delivery wagon and transferring the contents, in the shape of numerous packing cases, to the deck of the vessel which I was scrutinising. It was afternoon of a grey day in the latter part of October three years ago; and the scene was one of the wharves of the east basin of the London Docks, round which I had been prowling in search of a ship. I had been thus engaged ever since nine o'clock that morning, interviewing skippers and mates, so far unsuccessfully, when I was "brought up all standing" by finding myself in close proximity to a white-hulled, ship-rigged craft of, I estimated, some two thousand five hundred tons measurement.