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The First Mate, by Harry Collingwood
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Title: The First Mate The Story of a Strange Cruise
Author: Harry Collingwood
Illustrator: E.S. Hodgson
Release Date: June 17, 2008 [EBook #25818]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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The First Mate, by Harry Collingwood.
CHAPTER ONE.
THE "STELLA MARIS" AND MRS VANSITTART.
"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