Who beachcombed my three rudders, the one
toilfully adzed out in one piece from the beautiful heart of a bean-tree
log, another cunningly fitted with a sliding fin, and that of red cedar
with famous brass mountings? Who owns the pair of ballast tanks once
mine? Who the buoy deemed securely moored? Who the paddles and the
rowlocks and the signal halyards, lost because of Neptune's whims and
violence? Beachcombing is a nicely adjusted, if not quite an exact art.
Not once but several times has the libertine Neptune scandalously seduced
punts and dinghies from the respectable precincts of Brammo Bay, and
having philandered with them for a while, cynically abandoned them with a
bump on the mainland beach, and only once has he sent a punt in return--a
poor, soiled, tar-besmirched, disorderly waif that was reported to the
police and reluctantly claimed.
A mind inclined to casuistry, could it not defend Beachcombing? Does not
the law recognise it under the definition of trover? Why bother about the
law and the moralities when it is all so pleasing, so engrossing, and so
fair?
The Beachcomber wants no extensive establishment. His possessions need
never be mortgaged.
Pages:
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108