On an afternoon in the early summer of 1856 Captain Nathaniel Plum,
master and owner of the sloop _Typhoon_ was engaged in nothing more
important than the smoking of an enormous pipe. Clouds of strongly
odored smoke, tinted with the lights of the setting sun, had risen above
his head in unremitting volumes for the last half hour. There was
infinite contentment in his face, notwithstanding the fact that he had
been meditating on a subject that was not altogether pleasant. But
Captain Plum was, in a way, a philosopher, though one would not have
guessed this fact from his appearance. He was, in the first place, a
young man, not more than eight or nine and twenty, and his strong,
rather thin face, tanned by exposure to the sea, was just now lighted up
by eyes that shone with an unbounded good humor which any instant might
take the form of laughter.
master and owner of the sloop _Typhoon_ was engaged in nothing more
important than the smoking of an enormous pipe. Clouds of strongly
odored smoke, tinted with the lights of the setting sun, had risen above
his head in unremitting volumes for the last half hour. There was
infinite contentment in his face, notwithstanding the fact that he had
been meditating on a subject that was not altogether pleasant. But
Captain Plum was, in a way, a philosopher, though one would not have
guessed this fact from his appearance. He was, in the first place, a
young man, not more than eight or nine and twenty, and his strong,
rather thin face, tanned by exposure to the sea, was just now lighted up
by eyes that shone with an unbounded good humor which any instant might
take the form of laughter.
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