The tale seems an authentic recollection. He related it to me many
times, using the very same words. The grandfather honoured me by a
special and somewhat embarrassing predilection. Extremes touch. He was
the oldest member by a long way in that company, and I was, if I may say
so, its temporarily adopted baby. He had been a pilot longer than any
man in the boat could remember; thirty--forty years. He did not seem
certain himself, but it could be found out, he suggested, in the
archives of the Pilot-office. He had been pensioned off years before,
but he went out from force of habit; and, as my friend the patron of the
company once confided to me in a whisper, "the old chap did no harm.
He was not in the way." They treated him with rough deference. One and
another would address some insignificant remark to him now and again,
but nobody really took any notice of what he had to say. He had survived
his strength, his usefulness, his very wisdom. He wore long, green,
worsted stockings pulled up above the knee over his trousers, a sort of
woollen nightcap on his hairless cranium, and wooden clogs on his feet.
Without his hooded cloak he looked like a peasant. Half a dozen hands
would be extended to help him on board, but afterward he was left pretty
much to his own thoughts.
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