`` But I 'm heart-glad to see you . It 's brought back my youth for a little while . You do n't know yet what a boon THAT is . Mistress Blythe here has the trick -- she does it quite often for me . '' Captain Jim was still more excited when he discovered that Owen Ford was what he called a `` real writing man . '' He gazed at him as at a superior being . Captain Jim knew that Anne wrote , but he had never taken that fact very seriously . Captain Jim thought women were delightful creatures , who ought to have the vote , and everything else they wanted , bless their hearts ; but he did not believe they could write . `` Jest look at A Mad Love , '' he would protest . `` A woman wrote that and jest look at it -- one hundred and three chapters when it could all have been told in ten . A writing woman never knows when to stop ; that 's the trouble . The p ` int of good writing is to know when to stop . '' `` Mr. Ford wants to hear some of your stories , Captain Jim '' said Anne . `` Tell him the one about the captain who went crazy and imagined he was the Flying Dutchman . '' This was Captain Jim 's best story . It was a compound of horror and humor , and though Anne had heard it several times she laughed as heartily and shivered as fearsomely over it as Mr. Ford did . Other tales followed , for Captain Jim had an audience after his own heart . He told how his vessel had been run down by a steamer ; how he had been boarded by Malay pirates ; how his ship had caught fire ; how he helped a political prisoner escape from a South African republic ; how he had been wrecked one fall on the Magdalens and stranded there for the winter ; how a tiger had broken loose on board ship ; how his crew had mutinied and marooned him on a barren island -- these and many other tales , tragic or humorous or grotesque , did Captain Jim relate . The mystery of the sea , the fascination of far lands , the lure of adventure , the laughter of the world -- his hearers felt and realised them all . Owen Ford listened , with his head on his hand , and the First Mate purring on his knee , his brilliant eyes fastened on Captain Jim 's rugged , eloquent face .
`` Wo n't you let Mr. Ford see your life-book , Captain XXXXX ? ''
Anne Blythe Dutchman First Ford Jim Malay escape fire int