My father told me once of a captain from the island of Krk, where my father grew up. The captain—called barba in the Italian dialect common to the Adriatic coast from Trieste to Dubrovnik—had a small cargo ship and hired a few hands. One day there was a big storm and the ship took in a good deal of water. The captain ordered his hands to go into the hold and pump out the water. They were pumping and pumping, but the storm kept raging and the ship kept taking water. At length they returned to the deck, disgruntled: “Barba, we don’t want to pump!” The captain was calm: “Then don’t pump.” “But we’ll drown!” “Then pump.”