The South Seas is
the next stop beyond Southern California. I think I could keep their old
books, though I never took any prizes in arithmetic at school. How
amusing it would be to enter in my ledger instead of "two dozen eggs"
and "three pounds of butter," "two dozen pearls at so much a dozen" (or
would they be entered by ounces?) and "fifty pounds of sandalwood," or
should I reckon that by cords? I could find out later. I would wear my
large tortoise-shell spectacles (possibly blinders in addition), and I
should attend strictly to business for a while, but when a full moon
rose over a South Sea lagoon, and the palm trees rustled and the
phosphorescence broke in silver on the bow of the pearl schooner, where
she rode at anchor in our little bay, could I keep my contract and avoid
sentiment? How ridiculous to suppose that stipulating that the lady
should be forty or over would make any difference! What is forty? If
they had said that she must be a cross-eyed spinster with a hare-lip, it
would have been more to the point. I'm not a spinster or cross-eyed, but
why go on? I don't intend to commit myself about the age limit. I don't
have to, because I am not going to apply for the position, after all.
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