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 Jim ? '' asked Anne , when Captain Jim finally declared that yarn-spinning must end for the time . `` Oh , he do n't want to be bothered with THAT , '' protested Captain Jim , who was secretly dying to show it . `` I should like nothing better than to see it , Captain Boyd , '' said Owen . `` If it is half as wonderful as your tales it will be worth seeing . '' With pretended reluctance Captain Jim dug his life-book out of his old chest and handed it to Owen . `` I reckon you wo n't care to wrastle long with my old hand o ' write . I never had much schooling , '' he observed carelessly . `` Just wrote that there to amuse my nephew Joe . He 's always wanting stories . Comes here yesterday and says to me , reproachful-like , as I was lifting a twenty-pound codfish out of my boat , ` Uncle Jim , ai n't a codfish a dumb animal ? '
I 'd been a-telling him , you see , that he must be real kind XXXXX dumb animals , and never hurt 'em in any way .
If With about after from on over that though to