THE SAILOR 
 
 J C-SNAITH
 
 THE SAILOR
 
 'Mr. Harper was completely out of his depth." 
 
 267.]
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 BY 
 
 J. C. SNAITH 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 BROKE OF COVENDEN, ARAMINTA, ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 W. A. HOTTINGER 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP 
 
 PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY 
 APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 Printed in the United States of America
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "Mr. Harper was completely out of his depth." 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 "A nigger with rings in his ears came forward with 
 
 alight." 38 
 
 "'I was a bit on last night,' she said with well 
 
 assumed humility." 308 
 
 "'Mary/ he said, ' do you remember your words 
 
 eleven months ago?'" 438 
 
 203G?
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 BOOK I 
 
 GESTATION 
 
 A LARGE woman in a torn dress stood at the gate of 
 a rag and bone dealer's yard. The season was No- 
 vember, the hour midnight, the place a slum in a 
 Midland textile town. 
 
 Hanging from the wall of the house beyond was a dirty 
 oil lamp round which the fog circled in a hundred spectral 
 shapes. Seen by its light, she was not pleasant to look upon. 
 Bare-armed, bare-headed, savage chest half bare and sagging 
 in festoons, she stood stayless and unashamed, breathing gin 
 and wickedness. A grin of quiet joy was upon her alcoholic 
 countenance. Nay, more than joy. It was a light of inward 
 ecstasy, and sprang from the fact that a heavy carter's whip 
 was in her hand. 
 
 Not many feet from the spot on which she stood was the 
 wall jof a neighbor's house. Crouching against it so that 
 he was scarcely visible in the darkness was a boy of thirteen. 
 Without stockings or shoes, he wore only a filthy shirt, a 
 thing that had once been a jacket, and a tattered lower gar- 
 ment which left his thighs half naked. 
 
 His face was transfigured with terror. 
 I
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Enery Arper," said the woman with a shrill snigger 
 not unlike the whinny of a horse, "Auntie said she'd wait up 
 for you, didn't she? And she always keeps a promise, don't 
 she, my boy?" 
 
 The figure six yards away the fog was doing its best to 
 hide cowered yet closer to the wall. 
 
 "And what was it, Enery, that Auntie promised you if 
 you come 'ome again with ninepence?" The wheeze of the 
 voice had a note of humor. 
 
 The boy was wedged so close to the wall that he had 
 barked the skin off his bare knees. The woman, watching 
 him intently, began to trail the heavy lash on the cobbled 
 yard. 
 
 "Said she'd make it up to a shillin' for you, didn't she? 
 ... if you come 'ome again with ninepence. Said she'd 
 cut the heart out o' you . . . same as if it was the eye of a 
 pertater." 
 
 A powerful arm was already loose. The eye of an expert 
 had the distance measured to a nicety. 
 
 "Clean out." 
 
 A scream followed that was not human. The heavy whip 
 had caught the boy round the unprotected thighs. 
 
 "I'll do ye in this time." 
 
 Mad with pain and terror the boy dashed straight at her, 
 charging like a desperate animal, as with leisurely ferocity 
 she prepared for a second cut at him. The impact of his 
 body was so unexpected that it nearly knocked her down. 
 
 It was his only chance. Before she could recover her 
 balance he was out of the gate and away in the fog. A lane 
 ran past the yard. He was in it before the whip could reach 
 him again; in it and running for his life. 
 
 The lane was short, straight and very narrow, with high 
 walls on both sides. A turn to the right led through a small 
 entry into a by-street which gave access to one of the main 
 2
 
 T T IE SAILOR 
 
 thoroughfares of the city. A turn to the left ended In a blank 
 wall which formed a blind alley. 
 
 By the time the boy was halfway down the lane, he realized 
 that in his mad terror he had turned to the left instead of 
 to the right. There was no escape. He was in a trap. 
 
 A moment he hesitated, sick with fear. He could hear 
 the heavy footfalls of his pursuer; as she plowed through 
 the fog he could hear her wheezy grunts and alcoholic curses. 
 
 "Took the wrong turnin', eh?" She was within ten 
 yards. "Hold on a minute, that's all, young man !" 
 
 In sheer desperation the boy ran on again, well knowing 
 he could not get beyond the wall at the bottom of the lane. 
 He could see it already. A lamp was there, faintly revealing 
 its grim outline with fog around it. 
 
 "I'll do ye in, by God, I will!" 
 
 The voice was so near that his knees began to fail. Over- 
 come with terror he threw himself on the ground near the 
 wall. He had neither the strength nor the courage to try 
 again the trick that had saved him a minute ago. 
 
 He knew she was standing under the lamp, he knew she 
 was looking for him. 
 
 "Ah, Enery, I see yer," she said, with a savage laugh. 
 
 Content to know there was no escape for him she paused 
 to get her breath. 
 
 The boy began to wriggle along under the lea of the wall, 
 while she stood watching him. The wall was old, and all at 
 once he made a discovery. Close to his head was a small 
 hole, where three or four bricks had fallen out. It was a 
 mere black space, leading he knew not where. But he didn't 
 hesitate. Hardly knowing what he did, he squeezed his head 
 through the hole. And then with the frenzied desperation 
 of a rat in a trap he dragged his body after it. 
 
 An oath came from the woman under the lamp, a short 
 ten yards off. She sprang at the w?ll. She lashed at it again 
 3
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 and again, cursing horribly. But it was no use. Her prey 
 had escaped with one savage cut across the heels. She con- 
 tinued to lash at the hole, but the boy was out of her reach. 
 
 II 
 
 WHERE was he? He didn't know. Half dead with 
 fear he could hear her lashing at the wall, but she 
 wouldn't be able to get at him. 
 
 With a great effort he rose from his hands and knees. He 
 had hardly strength to stand up. He seemed to be in a sort 
 of garden. There was mold under his feet. It was too dark 
 to see it, but he knew by the smell; also it was damp and 
 sticky. He moved a few yards and his feet became entangled 
 among roots and bushes. And then suddenly a dog began 
 to bark and his heart stood still. 
 
 For quite a minute he dared not move another step. The 
 dog sounded very near, yet he could not return by the way 
 he had come. No, in spite of the dog he must find another 
 outlet from this garden. Very cautiously he moved a yard 
 or two, and then stopped to listen. Shaking with terror he 
 then moved on again. 
 
 Groping about in the fog and darkness, his teeth chattering 
 with cold, his brain quite numb, it seemed that he would 
 never be able to find a way out. Where was he? He had 
 no idea of anything except the ground under his feet. Now 
 it was a stretch of gravel, now a rubbish heap, now moist 
 earth, now roots and bushes, and then finally, after the lapse 
 of hours as it seemed, he came up against a wall. 
 
 It might be the wall through which he had crept. Of that 
 
 he could not be sure, but yet he did not think it was. He 
 
 began to follow the line of it, taking care to do so in the 
 
 opposite direction to the dog whose barking was incessant. 
 
 4
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 As he walked he rubbed his hands along the surface of the 
 wall in the hope of finding a gate. 
 
 For a long time he groped through the darkness, but 
 came upon nothing in the least resembling a gate. Again he 
 grew desperate. He would have to wait there until daylight. 
 But he simply dared not do that with the dog straining at his 
 chain, seemingly, only a very few yards off. 
 
 Sick with cold and shaking in every limb he began to cry 
 feebly. His knees were knocking, he was at the end of his 
 wits. There was no way out of the garden, yet if he stayed 
 in it the dog would kill him. Suddenly he decided upon the 
 only possible course; he must climb the wall. Not knowing 
 its height, or what there was beyond, or whether it was 
 merely the wall of a house, he began to "shin" up it for all 
 he was worth, grasping its rough surface as well as he could 
 with his hands and his knees and his bare toes. There must 
 be some kind of a top to it, and when the dog broke his chain, 
 as every moment he threatened to do, he might not be able 
 to reach him. 
 
 Wild and precarious struggling, in the course of which 
 he was several times within an ace of toppling backwards into 
 the garden, brought his numb fingers at last to a kind of 
 coping. He had just strength enough to draw up his body 
 on to the narrow ledge, only to find that he could not possibly 
 remain on it. The top of the wall was sown thickly with 
 broken glass. 
 
 He knew his hands and knees were cut, yet he could 
 hardly feel anything. There was only one thing to do now ; 
 he must jump for it one side or the other. He came to no 
 deliberate decision; at that moment he was completely un- 
 balanced in body and mind, but a voice inside him said 
 suddenly : 
 
 "Chance it!" 
 
 Hands and knees instinctively gripping as hard as they 
 5
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 could, he slipped over the other side. But it was impossible 
 to keep a hold. He slipped and swayed and slipped again, 
 and then he knew that he was falling . . . falling . . . 
 falling through space into the unknown. 
 
 Ill 
 
 SOMETHING hit him, something so hard that it 
 seemed to crack him as if he had been an egg. It was 
 the earth. He lay a moment almost without sensation, 
 and then he realized that the dog was no longer barking. 
 Feeling reassured he made an effort to rise. He couldn't 
 move. The sensation was horrible. Perhaps he had broken 
 his back. 
 
 He tried several times, and because he could feel no pain 
 the thought seemed to grow upon him. Presently, however, 
 he found he could stand. Still dazed and shaken in every 
 bone, he knew now that he had had the luck to fall upon 
 soft earth. But as soon as he stood up there came a savage 
 grinding pain in his left leg, and he lay down whimpering 
 feebly. He then got up again, and then lay down again, 
 and then suddenly he wished he was dead. 
 
 If only he had had the luck to kill himself! But every 
 moment now made the wish seem more vain. He was 
 conscious of one ache after another, in every part of his 
 body; his hands and feet were bleeding, he was sick and 
 sorry, but he seemed to know that death was a long way off. 
 
 Suddenly he stood up again. The cold, wet earth under 
 him was unendurable. Where was he? He set his teeth, and 
 began to drag his left leg after him in order to find out. 
 
 Where was he? This place seemed a sort of garden too. 
 But there was no dog in it. The damp soil was merged very 
 soon in substances less gentle to the feet; old crocks and 
 6
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 scraps of metal and other debris, the prelude to a rubbish 
 heap. And then without in the least expecting it, he came 
 upon water. The question was answered. He was on the 
 bank of the canal. 
 
 The knowledge chilled right through him. Here and now 
 was his chance. It wouldn't take more than a minute if 
 he jumped straight in. But the water looked still and cold 
 and horrible. As he came to the edge he found he couldn't 
 face it. He simply hadn't the pluck. 
 
 He limped on a few yards. It might seem easier a bit 
 lower down. But when he came a bit lower down he couldn't 
 face it either, and he stood at the edge of the water crying 
 miserably. 
 
 After a while he dragged himself away from the canal. 
 He stumbled over rubbish heaps and stones and brickbats, 
 varied now and then with nettles and twitch grass. He came 
 to a low bridge and crossed it. Nothing would have been 
 easier than to slip over the side ; it might have been there for 
 the purpose; but this was one of the places where the fog 
 had lifted a little, again he caught a glimpse of the water 
 and again he moved on. 
 
 At last he came to some wooden railings and got through 
 a gap where one or two had been broken. Here the fog was 
 so thick that he lost his bearings altogether. He didn't know 
 in the least where he was, he couldn't see his hand before 
 him; and then he stumbled over something which jarred his 
 hurt foot horribly. The something was a wire. 
 
 Of course, it was the railway. He remembered, almost 
 with, a feeling of excitement, that the railway was in the next 
 field to the canal. A moment he stood trying to make out 
 things and noises in the fog. Yes, he could hear, at least he 
 thought he could hear, wagons being shunted in the sidings. 
 After he had moved a few yards towards the sound, he was 
 able to make out a red light in the distance. 
 7
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 For some odd reason which he couldn't explain, the 
 feeling of excitement began to grow with the certainty that 
 he was on the line. He could feel the metals, icy cold, smooth 
 and slippery under his feet. He limped along until a dim 
 shape loomed ahead. It was a signal box. By this time his 
 excitement was almost terrible. 
 
 He stood a moment listening to the snortings of an engine 
 which he couldn't see, and the clang-clang-clang of the 
 wagons as they were being shunted in the sidings. And then 
 all at once the signal under which he was shivering dropped 
 with a great clatter, and something very deep down in him, 
 a something he had not known existed until that moment, 
 gave a sort of little exultant cry and told him that now was 
 his chance. 
 
 Excited almost to the verge of joy he limped past the 
 signal box in order to get away from its lights. If the thing 
 was done at all it would have to be done in darkness. Pres- 
 ently he looked round, and with a sensation of downright 
 terror, found that the lights of the signal box were no longer 
 to be seen. Here the fog was quite thick again ; whichever 
 way he looked there was not a single object he could make 
 out in the darkness. But under his bare feet he could feel 
 the broad metals icy, smooth, inexorable. 
 
 "Now's your chance," said a gentle voice deep down in 
 himself. 
 
 Instantly he lay full length in the six-foot way. 
 
 "Set your head on the line," said the voice. 
 
 He did as he was told. The sensation of the icy metal 
 under his right ear was so horrible that his heart almost 
 stopped inside him. 
 
 "Close your eyes," said the voice, and then it said a little 
 more gently as if it knew that already he was half dead with 
 fear, "Stay just as you are and you'll not know nothink 
 about it." 
 
 8
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 He closed his eyes. 
 
 "Don't move," said the voice. "Stay there and it'll not 
 hurt you." 
 
 If he had had a God to pray to, he would have prayed. 
 
 The engine seemed a long time on the way. He daren't 
 move hand or foot, he daren't stir a muscle of his body. 
 But as the seconds passed an intense desire came upon him 
 to change the position of his head. It felt so undefended 
 sideways on. Surely it would be better if he turned it round 
 so that. . . . 
 
 "Don't move," the voice commanded him. "Keep just 
 like that. Quite still." 
 
 He was bound to obey. The voice was stronger than he. 
 
 "Eyes shut, and you'll not know nothink." 
 
 It was as a mother would have spoken had he ever heard 
 a mother speak. 
 
 . . . The engine was coming. He could hear it snorting 
 and rattling in the distance. He simply daren't listen. He 
 tried to imagine he was already dead. But a frightful crash 
 suddenly broke in upon his brain, and then another, and 
 then another ... he had never realized how much it toolc 
 to ... 
 
 "Fog signals," said the voice. "Keep just as you are . . 
 eyes shut . . . quite still . . . quite still." 
 
 There it was, grunting and rattling. . . . Know nothink ! 
 . . . there . . . now . . . 
 
 Grunting, rattling, snorting, what a time it took! In 
 spite of himself he opened his eyes, and found that he was 
 still^ alive. 
 
 "You were on the wrong line after all." 
 
 The sound of the voice turned him faint.
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 IV 
 
 THERE was only one thing to be done now, and this 
 he did without delay. He took his head from the 
 metals and stood up as well as he could. His body 
 was all numb and lifeless, but there was a queer excitement 
 in him somewhere that for the moment made him feel almost 
 happy. After all, he wasn't dead. And in that strange 
 moment that was like a dream he was almost glad he wasn't. 
 Yes, almost glad. It was hard to believe that he should 
 wish to find himself alive, and yet as he stretched his limbs 
 and began to move he couldn't honestly say that after all he 
 wasn't just a little bit pleased. 
 
 He was not able to move very fast; he was so dreadfully 
 cold for one thing, and then his left foot was hurt. But now, 
 as he walked along the six-foot way, he felt somehow stronger 
 than he had ever felt in his life before. Of a sudden he 
 crossed the metals and plunged recklessly sideways into the 
 fog. He stumbled over some signal wires and fell on his 
 knees, got up and stumbled over some more. What did it 
 matter? What did anything matter? After all, it was quite 
 easy to die. He must find the right line and make a job 
 of it. 
 
 He stopped a moment, and turned this thought over in 
 his mind. And then he heard the voice again. 
 
 "Henry Harper, you'll never be able to do that again as 
 long as you live." 
 
 The words were gentle and composed, but they struck 
 him like a curse. He knew that they were true. Not as 
 long as he lived would he be able to do again as he had just 
 done. It was as if the judge in his wig whom he had seen 
 that afternoon riding to the Assizes in his gilt carriage had 
 passed a life sentence upon him. His knees began to crum- 
 10
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 ble under him again; he could have shrieked with terror. 
 
 Crying miserably he limped along into the sidings. He 
 came to a lamp. All around were silent, grim shapes upon 
 which its feeble light was cast. They were loaded wagons, 
 sheeted with tarpaulins. With the amazing recklessness that 
 had just been born in him he determined to find a way into 
 one of them in the hope of being able to lie down and sleep. 
 
 It was not very difficult to climb up and get under one 
 of the sheets, which happened to have been loosely tied. 
 Also he had the luck to find a bed that would have been 
 more or less comfortable had the night not been so bitterly 
 cold. The wagon was loaded with sacks full of a substance 
 soft and yielding; as a matter of fact, it was flour. 
 
 Henry Harper lay down with a feeling of relief and bur- 
 rowed among the sacks as far as he could get. A mass of 
 aches in body and soul, anything was better than the darkness 
 and damp fog and icy substances cutting into his bare feet. 
 
 Presently, with the sacks piled all round him, he felt less 
 miserable, and he fell asleep. 
 
 How long he slept he didn't know. But it must have been 
 some little time, and the sleep must have been fairly sound, 
 for he was only awakened by a great jolt of the wagon. And 
 before he was fully awake it had begun to move. 
 
 Hadn't he better jump out? No, let it move. Let it do 
 anything it liked. Let it go anywhere it pleased. What did 
 it matter? Again he fell asleep. 
 
 The next time he awoke he was shivering with cold and 
 feeling very hungry. But the wagon was moving now and 
 no mistake. It was still pitch dark, although the fog seemed 
 to have lifted a bit, but the detonators which had been placed 
 on the line were going off now and again with tremendous 
 reports, signals flew past, and while he lay wondering what 
 he ought to do now, he passed through an array of lights 
 which looked like a station. 
 
 2 ii
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 He soon came to the conclusion that it was useless to 
 do anything. He couldn't get out of the wagon now even if 
 he wanted to, that was unless he wanted to kill himself. 
 Yes . . . that was exactly what. . . . 
 
 "Lie quiet. Go to sleep : " a stern voice commanded 
 him. 
 
 He tried to sleep again but soon found he couldn't. He 
 was cold and ill, but after an attack of vomiting he felt 
 better. Meanwhile the wagon rattled on and on through 
 the night, and it seemed to go faster the farther it went. 
 
 Where was it going? What did it matter where it went 
 so long as he went with it? But the sudden thought was 
 like a blow that was just what did matter! They would 
 find him lying there, and they, would give him to the police, 
 and the police would do something to him. He knew all 
 about that, because they had done something to him once 
 already for taking an apple off a stall in the market place. 
 He had only taken one, but they had given him six strokes, 
 and in spite of the cold and the pain in his left leg he still 
 remembered just what they were like. 
 
 Perhaps he ought to jump for it. No, that was impossible 
 with his leg like that; the wagon was going too fast. He 
 had better lie quiet and slip out as soon as the wagon stopped 
 at a station. He burrowed far down into the sacks once 
 more, for the sake of the warmth, and after a while he went 
 to sleep again. 
 
 And then he had a dream that filled him with terror. The 
 police had found him. The police had found him in the 
 wagon. 
 
 He awoke with a start. Rough hands were shaking him. 
 Yes, it was perfectly true! 
 
 "Kirn up ... you!" 
 
 It was the voice of the police. 
 
 He turned over with a whimper and lifted up his head, 
 12
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 only to drop it instantly. He had been blinded by the glare 
 of a lantern held six inches from his eyes. 
 
 "Well, damn me," a great, roaring voice surged into his 
 ears. "Here, Ike!" 
 
 "What's up now?" said a second voice, roaring like the 
 first. 
 
 "Come and look at this." 
 
 The boy dug his head into the sacks. 
 
 "What's up?" said voice the second. 
 
 "What about it? Must ha' got in at Blackhampton." 
 
 "Well, damn me." 
 
 The boy burrowed deeper and deeper into the sacks. 
 
 "Here, come out of it." The owner of the first voice 
 took him by the ear and dragged him out of the wagon. 
 
 "What's yer name?" 
 
 No answer. 
 
 His captor shook him roughly. 
 
 "Enry Arper," whimpered the boy. 
 
 "Enry what?" 
 
 "Enry Arper." 
 
 "Enry Arper, is it? Well, you are going to have some- 
 thing to 'arp for, you are, my lad." 
 
 "Ever had the birch rod, Mister Enry Arper?" inquired 
 the first voice with a kind of grim pleasantness. 
 
 The boy didn't answer. 
 
 "No? Not had that pleasure? The police are going to 
 cut the skin off o' you and sarve you right. They'll larn you 
 to trespass on to the railway. Fetch the foreman, Ike." 
 
 WHile the boy, securely held by the ear, stood shivering, 
 Ike went leisurely in search of the foreman shunter. It was 
 six o'clock, and that individual, who had been on duty since 
 that hour the previous evening, was on the point of going 
 home. Ike found him in the messroom, where he had gone 
 to exchange his lantern for the small wicker basket in which 
 13
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 he brought his meals. His name was Job Lorimer, and being 
 large and fat and florid he sauntered up to the scene of action 
 with an air of frank acceptance of life as it is, that seems to 
 go as a rule with his type of physique and countenance. 
 
 "Why, blow me, Iggins, what's all this year?" 
 
 "Allow me to introjuice Mr. Enry Arper o' Blackhamp- 
 ton. Mr. Job Lorimer, foreman shunter, Kentish Town." 
 
 " 'Owdy do, young man. Pleased to meet you." Mr. 
 Lorimer winked solemnly at both his subordinates. "What 
 can we do for you?" 
 
 "Twelve strokes with the birch rod," said subordinate the 
 first. 
 
 "Eight for the first offence," said subordinate the second. 
 
 Suddenly the boy fell down senseless at the foreman shun- 
 ter's feet. 
 
 WELL, blow me," said the Foreman Shunter. "Show 
 the light, Pearson." 
 The second subordinate maneuvered the lantern. 
 "On'y a kid. And I never see sich a state as he's in. No 
 boots. No stockings. Just look at them feet. And his 
 hands all of a mush. Gawd!" said the Foreman Shunter. 
 
 "What'll you do about it, Job?" said subordinate number 
 one. 
 
 "Do about it?" said the Foreman Shunter sharply. "Do 
 about what?" 
 
 "Might let him go this time?" said subordinate number 
 two. 
 
 The boy opened his eyes. 
 
 "I'll take him 'ome to the missus and give him some break- 
 fast," said the Foreman Shunter with an air of asperity. 
 The odd thing was that both subordinates seemed silently 
 14
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 to approve this grave dereliction of a foreman shunter's duty, 
 
 "Can you walk, me lad?" 
 
 "O' course he can't, Iggins. not with them," said the 
 Foreman Shunter. "Can't stand on 'em, let alone walk on 
 'em. Here, catch holt o' the bawsket." 
 
 The Foreman Shunter took the boy in his arms and carried 
 him away from the goods yard as he would have carried a 
 baby. 
 
 "Leave the bawsket at No. 12 when you come off duty," 
 he called back to the first subordinate. 
 
 "Right, Job, I will," said the first subordinate rather 
 respectfully, and then as the Foreman Shunter passed out of 
 hearing, the first subordinate said to his mate, "Fancy taking 
 a thing like that 'ome to your missus." 
 
 In the meantime the boy was shivering and whimpering 
 in what he felt to be the strong arms of the police. 
 
 "Let me go, mister, this once," he whined as awful recol- 
 lections surged upon him. He had been getting terribly 
 hurt all through the night, but he knew that he was going 
 to be hurt still more now that the police had got hold of him. 
 
 But his faint whimpers and half-hearted wriggles were 
 without effect upon the majesty of the law. 
 
 "Lie still. Keep quiet," growled the Foreman Shunter, 
 adding as quite an impersonal afterthought, "Blast you!" 
 
 It seemed a very long time to the boy before he came to 
 prison. Up one strange street and down another he was 
 carried. As he lay in the arms of the police he could make 
 out lamp after lamp and row after row of houses in the 
 darkness. 
 
 It was a long way to the station. 
 
 "Let me go this once, mister," he began to whine again. 
 "I'll not do it no more." 
 
 "Quiet, blast you," growled the large, rich voice of the 
 police. 
 
 15
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 At last they came to a door, which in the uncertain light 
 seemed exactly similar to one he had passed through on an 
 occasion he would never forget to his dying day. He began 
 to cry again miserably. Perhaps they would give him some- 
 thing to eat they did so before but he would not be able 
 to eat anything this time if they offered it, not until they had 
 done what they had to do. 
 
 He could hear sounds a little way off ... inside the 
 prison. He gripped convulsively the rough overcoat of his 
 captor. How vividly he remembered it all! They gave it 
 two other boys first. Again he could hear their screams, 
 again he could see the blood running down their bare le^s. 
 
 He must try to be a man ... he remembered that one 
 of the other boys had laughed about it afterwards ... he 
 must try to be a man ... at least that had been the advice 
 of a fatherly policeman in spectacles who had presided over 
 the ceremony. . . . 
 
 "Mother . . . that you . . ." The terrific voice of his 
 captor went right through him. "Where are you, Mother? 
 Show a light." 
 
 Suddenly a door at the end of the passage was flung open. 
 There came a blinding gush of gaslight. 
 
 "Why, Job . . . whatever . . . !" 
 
 "I'll set him on the sophy." 
 
 "Yes, on the sophy. Goodness gracious me!" 
 
 The boy realized that he was on a horsehair sofa, and 
 that a fine, clean, handsome-looking lady was standing with 
 her mouth open in front of him. 
 
 "Goodness gracious, Job!" 
 
 "Come all the way from Blackhampton in a truck this 
 morning. By the 5 140 Express." 
 
 "Well, I'm blessed if I ever see such a hobject. I'll give 
 him some tea and a bit o' bacon, and some bread and butter, 
 and then I'll get some o' that mud off him." 
 16
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Some of it's blood," said the Foreman Shunter. 
 
 "Yes, I see it is. Never ... did ... I ... see ... 
 anythink . . . like him. I'll make the tea; the kettle's boil- 
 ing." The voice of Mother was the nearest thing to music 
 the boy had ever heard. It was better even than that of 
 the ladies who sang in the bar of the Wheat Sheaf, the Red 
 Lion, and the Crown and Anchor, outside which places he 
 had always stayed to listen when he could conveniently do 
 so. This room was not in the least like the police station. 
 And he was quite sure that the lady called Mother had noth- 
 ing whatever to do with. . . . 
 
 "Set him a bit nearer to the fire, Job," yes, the voice 
 was music "and put this round him." 
 
 "This" was an old coat. 
 
 VI 
 
 I'LL give it him in a saucer," said Mother. "It'll be 
 cooler that way." 
 A saucer of tea was offered to the boy. 
 "Can you hold it, me lad?" 
 "Yes, lady," he said, faintly. 
 
 "Lap it up, then. Better let me try it first." She sipped 
 a little out of the saucer. "Yes, that's right enough." 
 
 The tea was so perfectly delicious that he swallowed it at 
 a gulp. Mother and the Foreman Shunter watched him with 
 surprise. 
 
 "Now for a bite o' bread and butter," said Mother, sawing 
 away at a quartern loaf. 
 
 The boy seized the bread and butter like a hungry dog. 
 Mother and the Foreman Shunter stood looking at him with 
 queer, rather startled faces. 
 
 "I never see the likes o' that, Job." 
 17
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "No, never," said the Foreman Shunter, solemnly. "Damn 
 me." 
 
 "What's your name, boy?" 
 
 "Enry Arper, lady." 
 
 "Enry what?" 
 
 "Enry Arper, lady." 
 
 "Could you eat a bit o' bacon, do you think?" 
 
 The boy nodded with an eagerness that made the Foreman 
 Shunter laugh. 
 
 "I see nothing to laugh at, Job Lorimer," said his wife 
 sharply. Tears had come into her eyes. She whisked them 
 away with a corner of her apron, and then gave a sniff 
 of remarkable violence. "And they call this a Christian 
 land." 
 
 "You never heard me call it that, Mother," said the Fore- 
 man Shunter. 
 
 "More shame to you, then, Job Lorimer." 
 
 "I know this," said the Foreman Shunter, speaking in a 
 slow and decisive manner, "whatever this country is or 
 whatever it ain't, there's as much Christianity in it as there 
 is in that hearthrug. And there ain't a bit more." 
 
 "Shut your head," said his wife. "And hand me that 
 knife and I'll cut up this bit o' bacon for him." 
 
 She took a delicately browned rasher out of a hissing, 
 delicious smelling frying-pan on the fire, cut it into very 
 small pieces, gave it to the boy, and told him to eat it 
 slowly. 
 
 After the boy's wants had been attended to, Mother 
 spread a newspaper on the sofa and told him to put up his 
 legs and rest a bit. The Foreman Shunter then passed 
 through a door and performed wonders in the way of blow- 
 ing and splashing at the scullery sink. When he reappeared 
 his face was very red and shining and the boy was fast asleep. 
 
 "I'm thinking I'll have a bite meself," said Job, with 
 18
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 a glance at the sofa. "And then I suppose I had better take 
 him along to the police station." 
 
 Mother made no reply, but gave her husband a breakfast 
 worthy of a foreman shunter. She then examined carefully 
 the boy's hands and feet. 
 
 "I never did see such a hobject," said she. And then 
 with an imperious air, "I'll give him a wash, that's what 
 Til do." 
 
 In order to carry out this resolve, she went into the scul- 
 lery, filled the copper, and lit the fire. 
 
 Presently the members of the family, three small boys 
 and a smaller girl, came down to breakfast en route to 
 school. They looked wonderingly at the creature on the 
 sofa, with great curiosity in their half frightened eyes. Their 
 father told them sternly to keep away from it, to get on with 
 their breakfasts, not to make a noise, and to clear off to 
 school. 
 
 "Is it a boy or a girl?" Alfie asked Johnnie, in a thrilling 
 whisper as soon as father had retired to help Mother in the 
 scullery. 
 
 "A girl, o' course." 
 
 There was some excuse for Johnnie: there was something 
 that looked exactly like a girl in the sleeping face. The rest 
 was hidden by the coat. 
 
 The family was soon packed off to school, Johnnie "with 
 a flea in his ear" for having cleaned his boots imperfectly 
 the night before. Mother then cleared away the remains of 
 breakfast, and the Foreman Shunter fetched a fair-sized zinc 
 bath out of the washhouse, pushed back the table, and set 
 it down before the fire. He filled it with warm water from 
 the copper, and then gave the sleeper a shake and said, 
 
 "Now, then, boy." 
 
 The boy roused himself with a little whimper of protest. 
 He had not been very fast asleep; the police in varying 
 19
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 forms of their activity were still hovering round the out- 
 skirts of his mind. He began to cry miserably at the sight of 
 the zinc bath, which supplied a forgotten link in an awful 
 chain of memories. Yes, this was the police station after 
 all. He remembered now quite well how they gave him a 
 bath before they . . . 
 
 "What are you crying for?" asked Mother. "I'm not 
 going to hurt you, my boy. Nice warm bath. Bind up your 
 feet. Then you can go to sleep again." 
 
 Perhaps it wasn't the police station, after all. Certainly 
 that institution as he knew it had no Mother and no warm 
 tea and no fried bacon, and no sofa and no old coat. 
 
 Mother removed the filthy shirt and the tattered knicker- 
 bockers with uncompromising but not indelicate hands. 
 
 "Them had better be burnt, Job," she said sharply, as 
 she gave them to the Foreman Shunter to throw into the 
 back yard. 
 
 "Better ha' done this job in the scullery, Mother," said he. 
 
 "Too cold. . . ." She took the temperature of the bath 
 with an expert's finger. ... "I never did see anything like 
 this poor child. There's nothing to him. Look at his ribs. 
 You can count 'em. Ugh!" The eye of Mother had been 
 arrested by a broad red mark across both thighs. 
 
 "That's been done with a whip," said the Foreman Shun- 
 ter, grimly. 
 
 "Just look at those feet . . . they are beginning to bleed 
 again. And these pore hands. I'll get some rags and some 
 Friar's Balsam. And his hair ! Goodness gracious me ! I'll 
 have to go to the chemist's for that, I'm thinking." 
 
 It was perfectly true that Mother had to pay a visit to 
 the chemist for the boy's hair. Nothing less than the chemist 
 could meet the case. 
 
 In the meantime, the Foreman Shunter soaped and washed 
 the boy thoroughly, dried him with a coarse towel, rubbed 
 20
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 the Friar's Balsam on the mutilated hands and feet, which 
 made them smart horribly, and bound them in clean rags. 
 Mother then returned to perform wonders with the chemist's 
 lotion. Afterwards she fetched a nightgown of Alfie's, put 
 it on the boy, wrapped him up in a couple of blankets, and 
 made him comfortable on the sofa, and the Foreman Shunter 
 drew it a bit nearer the fire. Then the boy was told he could 
 sleep as long as he liked. Presently he began to doze, his 
 mind still running on the police; but certainly this was not 
 a bit like the station. 
 
 VII 
 
 WHAT'LL you do with him, Mother?" 
 It was tea time, the kitchen blind was down, 
 the gas was lit; and mother was toasting a muffin 
 for the Foreman Shunter, who was about to go on duty. 
 
 "He can't stay here, you know. We've as many as we 
 can manage already." 
 
 "I know that," snapped Mother. 
 
 Like most mothers who are worth their salt, she had rather 
 a habit of snapping at the Foreman Shunter. 
 
 The boy was feeling wonderfully comfortable. In fact, 
 he had never felt so comfortable in his life. And he was 
 just sufficiently awake to know that his fate was being 
 decided upon. 
 
 "What'll you do with him, anyhow?" 
 
 "I don't know," snapped Mother. 
 
 "I djon't neither. Seems to me there's nothing for it 
 but to hand him over to the police." 
 
 The boy was fully awake now. His heart stood still. It 
 seemed an age before mother spoke in answer to this terrible 
 suggestion. 
 
 "Yes, of course, there's always that," she said, at last. 
 21
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 The boy's heart died within him. 
 
 "He can't stay here, that's a moral," said the Foreman 
 Shunter. 
 
 "I never said he could," snapped Mother. "But I don't 
 hold with the police myself. It means the Work'us, and 
 you'd better not be born at all, Job Lorimer, than go to the 
 Work'us." 
 
 "You are right there," said the Foreman Shunter. 
 
 "He wants a honest occipation," said Mother, buttering 
 the muffin. 
 
 "He wants eddicatin' first," said the Foreman Shunter, 
 beginning to eat the muffin. "What can you do with a kid 
 like that? Don't know A from a bull's foot. Not fit for 
 any decent society." 
 
 "You are right there," said Mother. "But I'm all against 
 the Work'us, and it's no use purtending I ain't." 
 
 "Same here," said the Foreman Shunter. "But he can't 
 stay at No. 12, Gladstone Villas, and you can lay to that." 
 
 "Did I say he could?" snapped Mother yet again. 
 
 "Very well, then." 
 
 And the Foreman Shunter went on duty. 
 
 It took five days for the famille Lorimer to decide the fate 
 of Henry Harper. Five wonderful days in which he lay most 
 of the time wrapped in warm blankets on a most comfortable 
 sofa in a warm room. Everybody was remarkably good to. 
 him. He had the nicest things to eat and drink that had ever 
 come his way; he was spoken to in the only kind tones that 
 had ever been used to him in all his thirteen years of life. 
 He was given a clean shirt of Alfie's without a single hole in 
 it; he was given a pair of Johnnie's socks; a pair of the Fore- 
 man Shunter's trousers were cut down for him ; he was given 
 boots (Alfie's), a waistcoat (Alfie's), a jacket (Alfie's), a 
 necktie (Johnnie's), a clean linen collar (Alfie's), a red- 
 spotted handkerchief (Percy's by Percy's own request). 
 
 22
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 In fact, in those five days he was by way of being taken 
 to the bosom of the family. 
 
 He was really a very decent sort of boy at least, Father 
 said so to Mother in Johnnie's hearing. That is, he had the 
 makings of a decent boy. And Johnnie knew that if Father 
 said so it must be so, because Johnnie also knew that Father 
 was an extremely acute and searching critic of boys in general. 
 
 They were all very sorry for him, and Alfie and Percy were 
 also inclined to be sorry for Johnnie, who had made a regu- 
 lar mug of himself by declaring that this poor street arab 
 was a girl. It would take Johnnie at least a year to live it 
 down, but in the meantime they were full of pity for this 
 miserable waif out of the gutter who could neither write nor 
 read, who tore at his food, who called Mother "lady" and 
 Father "mister," and said "dunno" and used strange terms 
 of the streets in a way they could hardly understand. This 
 poor gutter-snipe, who had been so badly knocked about, who 
 had never had a father or a mother, or a brother or a sister, 
 was whole worlds away from the fine assurance, the com- 
 plete freedom and security of Selborne Street Higher Grade 
 Schools. He was more like a dumb animal than a boy; and 
 sometimes as they watched his white, hunted face and heard 
 his strange mumblings the nearest he got, as a rule, to 
 human speech it would have taken very little to convince 
 them that such was the case, could they only have forgotten 
 that his like was to be found at every street corner selling 
 matches and evening papers and begging for coppers when 
 the police were not about. 
 
 During those five days the boy's future was a sore problem 
 for the- Foreman Shunter and his wife. And it was only 
 solved at last by a god out of a machine. Mr. Elijah Hen- 
 dren w r as the deity in question. 
 
 That gentleman happened to look in upon the evening 
 of the fatal fifth day. A benign, cultivated man of the world, 
 23
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 he came regularly once a week to engage the Foreman Shun- 
 ter in a game of draughts. It was also Mr. Hendren's cus- 
 tom on these occasions to smoke a pipe of bacca and to give 
 expression to his views upon things in general, of which 
 from early youth he had been an accomplished critic. 
 
 Mr. Hendren, it seemed, had a relation by marriage who 
 followed the sea. He was a rough sort of man, in Mr. Hen- 
 dren's opinion not exactly what you might call polished. 
 Still, he followed a rough sort of trade, and this was a 
 rough sort of boy, and Mr. Hendren didn't mind having a 
 word with Alec the name of the relation and see what 
 could be done in the matter. 
 
 "I don't know about that," said Mother. "They might 
 ill-use him, and he's been ill-used more than enough al- 
 ready." 
 
 "Quite so," said Mr. Hendren politely, "huffing" the 
 Foreman Shunter. "Quite so, M'ria" Mr. Hendren was a 
 very old friend of the family "I quite agree with you there. 
 The sea's a rough trade rough an' no mistake Alec can 
 tell you tales that would make your hair rise but as I say, 
 he's a rough boy and even the 'igh seas is better than the 
 Work'us." 
 
 "Anything is better than that," said Mother. "All the 
 same, I wouldn't like the poor child to be knocked about. 
 You see, he's not very strong; he wants building up, and 
 he's been used that crool by somebody that he's frit of his 
 own shadow." 
 
 "Ah," said Mr. Hendren impressively. Impressiveness 
 was Mr. Hendren's long suit. At that time, he was perhaps 
 the most impressive man under sixty in Kentish Town. 
 "Ah," said Mr. Hendren, "I quite understand, M'ria. I'll 
 speak to Alec the first thing tomorrer and see what he can do. 
 Not to be knocked about but the sea's the sea, you quite 
 understand ?" 
 
 24
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "My great-uncle Dexter sailed twelve times round the 
 Horn," said Mother with modesty. 
 
 "Did he so?" said Mr. Hendren. "Twelve times. Before 
 the mast?" 
 
 "Before the mast?" was a little too much for Mother, 
 as Mr. Hendren intended it to be, having no doubt a repu- 
 tation to keep up. 
 
 "I don't know about afore the mast," said Mother stoutly. 
 "I only know that great-uncle Dexter was terrible rough 
 . . . terrible rough." 
 
 "All sailors is terrible rough," said Mr. Hendren, po- 
 litely "huffing" the Foreman Shunter again. "Still, M'ria, 
 I'll see what I can do with Alec . . . although, mind you, 
 as I say, Alec's not as much polish as some people." 
 
 "Great-uncle Dexter hadn't neither," said Mother. 
 "Foulest-mouthed man I ever heard in my life . . . and 
 that's saying a good deal." And Mother looked volumes at 
 the Foreman Shunter. 
 
 "That so?" said Mr. Hendren, tactfully, crowning his 
 second king. "However . . . I'll see Alec . . . first thing 
 tomorrer. . . ." 
 
 "Thank you, 'Lijah," said the Foreman Shunter. 
 
 VIII 
 
 ALEC'S" real name was Mr. Thompson. He was a 
 very hirsute man, with whiskers all over him, and 
 at first sight he seemed to bear a very striking re- 
 semblance to his arboreal ancestors of the largest and most 
 terrifying species. His distinguished relation, upon intro- 
 ducing him in the course of the next evening to the family 
 circle of No. 12, Gladstone Villas, seemed not in the least 
 proud of him, and to tell the truth about Mr. Thompson, 
 25
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 he did appear to be lacking in the graces of the town. His 
 rough pea-jacket and huge, ungainly limbs, his gruff voice 
 and gibbon-like aspect might all have been forgiven on the 
 ground of his calling, but unfortunately he began by ex- 
 pectorating with really extraordinary freedom and vehemence 
 into the kitchen fire, and from that moment it was quite 
 impossible for Mother or any other responsible person to 
 render Mr. Thompson in terms of the higher humanity. 
 This was a pity, because Mr. Thompson had evidently 
 a range of private qualities. 
 
 Truth to tell, Mother did not take to Mr. Thompson as 
 kindly as she might have done, and it needed all Mr. Hen- 
 dren's tact, which was very remarkable even for one who 
 was "wholesale," to enable her to have any truck with 
 "Alec" at all. 
 
 "You must be reasonable, M'ria," said Mr. Hendren, 
 urbanely. "It's either the Work'us for this boy or it's the 
 'igh seas. If it's the latter, you couldn't have a better man 
 than Alec to look after him; if it's the former, of course I 
 wash my hands of the matter." 
 
 This flawless logic was strongly approved by the Foreman 
 Shunter. 
 
 " 'Lijah speaks to the p'int," he affirmed, with a rather 
 doubtful glance in the direction of Mr. Thompson, who was 
 again expectorating into the fire with a display of virtuosity 
 that was almost uncanny. 
 
 In the meantime, the boy stood white and trembling in 
 the midst of Johnnie and Alfie and Percy while his fate hung 
 in the balance. Not one of these had taken kindly to Mr. 
 Thompson, in spite of the fact that at frequent intervals the 
 admired Mr. Hendren assured their father and mother that 
 "he was a first-rate seaman." 
 
 "Now, this is the crux of the matter," said Mr. Elijah 
 Hendren, bringing in the word "crux" as though he well 
 26
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 knew it was only "wholesale" people who were allowed to 
 use such a word at all. "Either the boy goes to sea with 
 Alec, and he couldn't have no better to take charge of him 
 Alec's a first-rate seaman else he goes to the Work'us. 
 Now, my boy, which is it to be ?" And Mr. Hendren fairly 
 hypnotized the poor waif in father's trousers cut down with 
 the large and rolling eye of an accepted candidate for the 
 honorary treasurership of the Ancient Order of Hedgehogs. 
 
 "Now, me lad, which is it to be?" Mr. Hendren 's fore- 
 finger wagged so sternly that the boy began to weep softly. 
 "Alec'll not eat you, you know. If he says he'll see you 
 through, he'll see you through. Am I right, Alec?" 
 
 "Yep," growled Alec, beginning to threaten a further as- 
 sault upon the kitchen fire. 
 
 "Very well, then," said Mr. Hendren. "There you are. 
 What can you ask fairer? You can either go with Alec 
 Mr. Thompson to you, my boy else you can be handed 
 over to the police, and they'll send you to the Work'us. 
 Now, boy, which is it to be?" Mr. Hendren put the ques- 
 tion with awful impressiveness. "It's a free country, you 
 know. You can take your choice: Alec Mr. Thompson 
 or the Work'us?" 
 
 If Henry Harper had had a doubt in his mind as to 
 which was the less grim of these alternatives, the casual men- 
 tion of the police undoubtedly laid it at rest. Mr. Thompson 
 looked capable of eating a boy of his age, but after all that 
 was very little compared with what the police, as Henry 
 Harper knew them, took a pride in doing in the ordinary 
 discharge of their functions. 
 
 "I'll go wiv 'im, mister," said Henry Harper, in sudden 
 desperation. 
 
 He then hid himself behind his friend Johnnie. 
 
 "With Mr. Thompson?" 
 
 "Yes, mister." 
 
 3 27
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Henry Harper began to sob, and Alfie and Percy at least 
 didn't blame him. Mr. Thompson was the nearest thing to 
 the wicked ogre in "Jack and the Beanstalk" they had ever 
 seen in their lives. 
 
 However, their mother who had the heart of a lion, who 
 was afraid of nothing so long as it was human and even 
 Mr. Thompson was apparently that took upon herself to 
 have a little serious discourse with the man of the sea. 
 
 "I suppose, Mr. Thompson, this is a decent ship to which 
 you will be taking the poor child?" said she. 
 
 It was necessary for Mr. Thompson to roll his eyes fear- 
 fully before he could do justice to such a leading question. 
 He was then understood to say in his queer, guttural voice, 
 which seemed to come out of his boots, that the ship was 
 right enough, although a bit hungry at times as all ships 
 were. 
 
 "Is the captain of the vessel a gentleman?" demanded 
 Mother at point-blank range. 
 
 Mr. Thompson was understood to say that when the Old 
 Man was all right he was all right, but when in drink he was 
 a devil. 
 
 "All men are," said Mother, succinctly. "That's the 
 worst of it. But I understand you to say that at ordinary 
 times the captain's a gentleman." 
 
 "Yep," said Mr. Thompson, comprehensively. 
 
 In spite, however, of this valuable testimonial to the 
 captain's character and status, Mother seemed very loath 
 to put her trust in him or in Mr. Thompson either. For 
 one thing that admirable seaman expectorated again into the 
 kitchen fire, but that apart, the note of primeval extrava- 
 gance in his outward aspect hardly commended itself to 
 Mother. 
 
 "The child is very young," she said, "to be going to sea. 
 And you sailors has rough ways my great-uncle Dexter 
 28
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 always said so. And he was a rough man if you like not as 
 rough as you are, Mr. Thompson, but still he was rough. 
 And as I say, the boy is not grown yet, there's nothing to 
 him, as you might say; still, as it's you, Mr. Thompson, or 
 the Work'us, I suppose it'll have to be you." 
 
 "Quite so, M'ria," interposed Mr. Hendren with marked 
 urbanity. 
 
 "Now you quite understand," said Mother. "Mr. Thomp- 
 son, I hold you responsible for this boy. You'll be good 
 to him, and stand his friend, and teach him seafaring ways, 
 and you'll see that nobody ill-uses him. You'll promise that 
 now, Mr. Thompson. This boy's delicate, and as I say, he's 
 already been knocked about so crool, he's frit of his own 
 shadow." 
 
 Mr. Thompson promised with becoming solemnity that he 
 would see no harm came to the boy. Thereupon he seemed 
 to go up a little in Mother's estimation. Moreover, he sud- 
 denly took an odd fancy to Johnnie. He produced a foreign 
 penny from his pea-jacket, offered it to Johnnie and asked 
 him what he thought of it, and he seemed so gratified that 
 Johnnie who had about as much imagination as the leg of 
 a chair was not in the least afraid of him, that he told 
 Johnnie to keep the penny, and then he fairly took away the 
 breath of everybody, Mother included, by promising magnifi- 
 cently to bring Johnnie a parrot from the West Indies. 
 
 Even Mr. Elijah Hendren was impressed by this princely 
 offer on the part of his kinsman by marriage. 
 
 "He's rough, o' course," whispered Mr. Elijah Hendren 
 to the Foreman Shunter, "but he means it about the parrot. 
 That's the kind o' man he is, although, mind you, I don't say 
 he's polished." 
 
 Whatever doubts might have been entertained for the 
 future of Henry Harper, the parrot somehow seemed to 
 soften them. Even Mother feh that to express misgiving 
 29
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 after that would be in bad taste. Mr. Thompson promised 
 that he would see the old man in the course of the mor- 
 row, as the Margaret Carey had to sail on Friday, but he 
 had no doubt it would be all right as they never minded a 
 boy or two. And then the Foreman Shunter sent Johnnie to 
 the end of the street for a quartern of rum, as there was 
 only beer in the house, and that mild beverage \vas not the 
 slightest use to a sailor. 
 
 Johnnie walked on air. At every shop window he came 
 to he stopped to examine his foreign penny. But what was 
 that in comparison with a real live parrot all the way from 
 the West Indies ? That night, Johnnie was the happiest boy 
 in Kentish Town. He slept with the foreign penny under 
 his pillow, and his dreams were of unparalleled magnificence. 
 
 And on the sofa in the kitchen below, tossed and dozed the 
 unhappiest boy in Kentish Town. He had escaped the police 
 by a miracle, he was quit of Auntie, he was free of the selling 
 of matches, but tomorrow or the day after he was leaving 
 the only friends he had ever known. As for the sea and 
 Mr. Thompson and the Margaret Carey, there was some 
 subtle but deadly instinct in him that had warned him al- 
 ready. There would be no Mother to wash him and bind his 
 wounds, or to give him fried bacon and see that he came 
 to no harm. 
 
 Twice he woke in the middle of the night, sweating with 
 fear, and wildly calling her name. 
 
 IX 
 
 THE next day it rained incessantly from morning till 
 night, and there was just a faint hope in the boy's 
 mind that it might prevent Mr. Thompson coming to 
 fetch him. He clung desperately to this feeble straw, because 
 30
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 it was the only one he had, but he was not such a fool as 
 to think that Mr. Thompson was the kind of man who stays 
 at home for the weather. Therefore it did not surprise 
 him at all when he was solemnly told that evening about 
 six o'clock, just after he had had his tea, that Mr. Thompson- 
 had come for him. 
 
 Sure enough Mr. Thompson had. Moreover, he had come 
 in a cab. All the same, he managed to enter the kitchen with' 
 the water running off his pea-jacket on mother's spotless 
 floor, and as he stood blinking fiercely in the gas light, he 
 looked bigger and hairier and less like a human being than 
 ever. 
 
 Henry Harper's one instinct was to take a tight hold of 
 Mother's apron. And this he did in spite of the fact that 
 Johnnie and Alfie and Percy were sitting round the table, 
 drinking tea and eating bread and jam. Mother told Henry 
 Harper very gently he must be a man, whereupon he did his 
 best to meet Mr. Thompson boldly. But he made a very 
 poor job of it indeed. 
 
 Mr. Thompson, whose speech could only be followed witK 
 certainty by specialists, was understood to ask whether the 
 boy's sea chest was ready. 
 
 "He has only the clothes he stands in," said Mother, 
 tardy. 
 
 Mr. Thompson said that was a pity. 
 
 The boy hadn't even an overcoat, and Mother decided to 
 give him quite a good one of Johnnie's Johnnie bravely 
 saying he didn't mind, although he minded a goodish bit, as 
 he was rather proud of that particular garment. 
 
 "Your father will buy you another," said Mother. "I 
 couldn't think of sending any boy to sea without an over- 
 coat." 
 
 She also made up a bundle of odds and ends for the boy: 
 a flannel shirt, two much-darned pairs of drawers, a rather
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 broken pair of boots, a knitted comforter, and a pot of 
 marmalade. She then gave him a kiss and put an apple into 
 his hand and told him to be a good boy, and then he was 
 gone. 
 
 HENRY HARPER followed Mr. Thompson into the 
 cab that was waiting at the street door. He sat all 
 alone opposite that ogre in the darkness, holding on 
 desperately to the bundle and the apple that Mother had 
 given him. He didn't venture to speak; he hardly ven- 
 tured to breathe while the cab rumbled and tumbled through 
 the rain. He didn't know where he was going. He 
 only knew that he was going to sea, and he didn't even 
 know what the sea was like, except that it was water 
 and people got drowned in it. There was no sea at Black- 
 hampton. 
 
 Mr. Thompson had not much conversation. This may 
 have been due to his superior rank, or because he was one 
 of those strong, silent men who prefer actions to words after 
 the manner of the heroes in the best modern romances. 
 Not that the boy was acquainted with any of these ; he could 
 (neither read nor write; indeed, it was quite true what the 
 Foreman Shunter had said, "that he didn't know A from a 
 bull's foot," although, of course, that was speaking figura- 
 tively. 
 
 Mr. Thompson sat grim and silent as the tomb. But 
 suddenly, by the light of a passing lamp, the boy saw his 
 right hand enter his pocket and come out with a large clasp 
 knife in it. This he opened at his leisure. And then all at 
 once a wave of terror swept over Henry Harper. This man 
 was Jack the Ripper. 
 
 That famous person was then at his zenith. He had 
 32
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 lately committed his fourth horrible murder in Whitechapel. 
 The boy knew that as an undoubted fact, because he had 
 cried the crime in the streets of Blackhampton, and had sold 
 out twice in an hour. Moreover, he knew as a fact ex- 
 tremely well informed contemporaries had told him that 
 Jack the Ripper was a sailor. 
 
 It was no use attempting to struggle or cry out. Besides, 
 he was now paralyzed with terror. The only thing there was 
 to hope for was that the Ripper would kill him before he 
 started to mutilate. 
 
 They passed another street lamp, and the boy saw thaf 
 Mr. Thompson had something else in his hand. It was a 
 fantastically shaped metal case. The murderer opened it 
 coolly and took out a queer, dark looking substance. He cut 
 a piece off with his knife, put it in his mouth, then closed 
 the blade and returned it to his pocket. The boy began to 
 tfreathe again. It was a plug of tobacco. 
 
 All the same, Henry Harper knew he was not yet out of 
 the wood. He was as sure as he was sitting in a four- 
 wheeler a thing he had never done before in his life that 
 this large and hairy sailor with the clasp knife was the mur- 
 derer. Moreover, as he cast terrified glances through the wet 
 windows into the sodden streets, he was certain this was 
 Whitechapel itself. Everything looked so dark and mean 
 and sullen, with noisome alleys on every hand and hardly 
 any lamps to see them by, that full-grown women, let alone 
 boys of thirteen, could be done to death in them without 
 attracting the police. 
 
 It_was not a bit of use trying to escape. Jack the Ripper 
 would cut his throat if he moved hand or foot. The best 
 thing he could do was to keep still. That was all very well, 
 but he was sick with fear. He was being taken into the 
 heart of Whitechapel to be done to death as Mary Ann 
 Nichols and Catherine Morton he was always very good 
 33
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 at remembering names and the other victims had been. He 
 was familiar with all the details; they had been enormously 
 discussed; there wasn't a newsboy in Blackhampton who 
 hadn't his own private theory of these thrilling crimes. 
 For instance, Henry Harper himself had always maintained 
 that the sailor was a big sailor, and that he had a black 
 beard. He had little thought a week ago when he had pre- 
 sented this startling theory to young Arris with a certain 
 amount of intellectual pride that he would so soon be in 
 a position to prove it. 
 
 They came to some iron gates. The cab stopped under 
 a lamp. Mr. Thompson put his head out of the window. If 
 the boy had not been petrified with terror now would have 
 been his chance. But he couldn't move. 
 
 The Ripper began to roar like a bull at some unseen 
 presence, and soon the gates moved back and the cab moved 
 on. And then about a minute later, for the first time in his 
 life, the boy saw the mast of a ship. He knew it was a ship. 
 He had seen pictures in shop windows. There was one shop 
 window in particular he frequented every Friday evening, 
 which always displayed the new number of the 'Lustrated 
 London News and the 'Lustrated London News was greav 
 on ships. This was a kind of glorified canal boat with 
 masts, but according to the 'Lustrated London News, and 
 there could be no higher authority, it was undoubtedly a 
 ship. 
 
 In his excitement at seeing it, he nearly forgot who was 
 sitting opposite. Perhaps he wasn't going to be mutilated in 
 Whitechapel after all. There might be yet a chance; the 
 murderer had not again taken his knife out of his pocket. 
 But suddenly another special edition flashed through his 
 memory: " 'Orrible crime on the 'Igh Seas. Revolting 
 Details." And then he knew that he was being decoyed to 
 the high seas, in order thajt this man could work his will 
 34
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 upon him at his leisure in circumstances of unspeakable 
 ferocity. 
 
 The cab stopped again. Mr. Thompson opened the door 
 and got out. It was still raining very hard. There was a 
 lamp close by, and the boy could see the water falling in long, 
 stealthy, narrow rods. The murderer told him roughly to 
 come out. He came out at once. Had he had the pluck of 
 a mouse, he would have run for it. But he was quaking 
 and trembling, his knees were letting him down. 
 
 The driver of the cab, a grotesque in an oilskin cape with 
 a hat to match it, dragged a large wooden box tied round 
 with cord off the roof of his machine and with the help of 
 its owner lowered it to the ground. By the time this was 
 done there came out of the darkness three or four strange 
 men, who moved with the stealth of those used to the night. 
 They gathered round the box and its owner with humble 
 offers of their assistance. 
 
 The boy's first thought was that these scarecrows were 
 confederates of the eminent murderer. But this theory was 
 soon shattered. At any rate, if confederates they were, Mr. 
 Thompson seemed to have little use for them at the moment. 
 Without a word of warning he suddenly ran boot first at one 
 of these wretches and sent him spinning into the mud. The 
 man fell with a howl and rose with a curse, and then made 
 off into the darkness muttering imprecations, in the wake of 
 .his companions who had disappeared already. 
 
 The boy could only feel that murderers of Mr. Thomp- 
 son's class act according to their tastes in these little matters ; 
 but the cabman was rather impressed. He had made up his 
 mind to stand out for "eight and a kick," but he now took 
 what was given him without a word. As a matter of fact, 
 he was given five shillings, which was considerably under 
 his legal fare, but he did not venture to question Mr. Thomp- 
 son's arithmetic. He moved off at once, but proceeded to 
 35
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 take it out of his wretched horse as soon as he got through 
 the dock gates. 
 
 In the meantime, Mr. Thompson was left standing beside 
 his sea chest in the rain, and Henry Harper stood beside it 
 also, convulsively clutching in one hand the bundle Mother 
 had made up for him and in the other the apple she had 
 given him. 
 
 Should he run for it? What was the use? All at once 
 Mr. Thompson shouldered his sea chest with an air of quiet 
 ferocity, and growled something that sounded like, "Git 
 forrard, bye." 
 
 XI 
 
 EXPECTING to be kicked Into the sea if he didn't 
 do as he was told, the boy got forrard at once. Mr. 
 Thompson and his sea chest followed close upon his 
 heels. Henry Harper crossed a couple of crazy planks with 
 water lying far down underneath them, Mr. Thompson and 
 his sea chest always just behind him, and then to his won- 
 der and dismay he suddenly realized that he was on the deck 
 of a ship. 
 
 He hadn't time to take his bearings, or to make out at 
 all clearly what the deck of a ship was like, before he was 
 descending a ladder into total darkness which smelled like a 
 sewer. A nigger with rings in his ears came forward with 
 a light, and Mr. Thompson asked if the Old Man was in 
 the cabin, and the nigger said, "Yessah." 
 
 Mr. Thompson led Henry Harper to the cabin, which was 
 a kind of room, about twelve feet by ten, miserably lit by a 
 single dirty oil lamp. Here the smell of sewage that pervaded 
 the vessel was rather genteelly mingled with an odor of rum. 
 The Old Man was in the cabin right enough. He was not 
 a very prepossessing old man to look at; to begin with, he 
 36
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 hardly looked old at all. He was just a rough, middle-aged 
 seaman, with a sodden, half-savage face, with a peculiar light 
 in it that somehow reminded the boy of Auntie when she had 
 been to the public. It might almost have been taken for 
 humor, had not humor some little reputation as a Christian 
 quality. 
 
 "Bye, sir," said Mr. Thompson, briefly. 
 
 "Bye," said the Old Man, with equal brevity. He then 
 passed half a bloodshot eye over the shrinking figure in 
 Johnnie's overcoat and father's trousers cut down, and said, 
 "Git forrard, bye," in a tone that no boy of judgment would 
 ever hesitate for a single moment to obey. 
 
 Henry Harper got forrard at once, although he didn't 
 know where. He found his way out of the cabin somehow, 
 and made ahead for a light that was suspended in an iron 
 bracket. Under this he stood a moment trying to collect 
 himself, or as much of himself as he had managed to bring 
 aboard the ship, when Mr. Thompson came along and led 
 him through various queer sorts of passages and up a flight 
 of stairs to a place which he called the cook's galley. 
 
 The cook, a fearful looking Chinaman, received Henry 
 Harper with a scowl, which, however, was merged at once in 
 an extreme servility towards Mr. Thompson who was clearly 
 a person of high consequence aboard the Margaret Carey. 
 In deference to Mr. Thompson's wishes, the cook, whose; 
 name was Sing, showed the boy a sort of small manhole be- 
 tween the copper and the galley stairs where he could put 
 his gear, and also where he could creep in and rest whenever 
 his duties permitted. 
 
 "All snuggee," said Sing, with an ingratiating grin for 
 the exclusive benefit of Mr. Thompson. Moreover, still 
 further to impress Mr. Thompson with his humanity, Sing 
 kindly presented the boy with a piece of moldy biscuit and 
 a couple of scraps of broken meat. Mr. Thompson, having 
 37
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 formally started Henry Harper on his career, withdrew. 
 Sing resumed his scowl and pointed to an inverted bacon box 
 on which his new assistant could sit and eat his supper. 
 
 But Henry Harper found very little in the way of ap- 
 petite. The biscuit was so hard that it seemed to require a 
 chisel, and the meat so salt and tough that any expendi- 
 ture of jaw power was unlikely to prove a profitable invest- 
 ment. There still remained the apple that Mother had given 
 him. But not for a moment did he think of eating that. 
 It would have been sacrilege. Mother had her shrine al- 
 ready in his oddly impressionable mind. No matter how 
 long he might live, no matter where his wanderings might 
 take him, he never expected to come across such a being 
 again. He wrapped the apple reverently in Percy's red- 
 spotted handkerchief. He would always keep that apple in 
 order that he might never forget her. 
 
 Sing, like Mr. Thompson, was not a great hand at con- 
 versation. Nevertheless, he had his share of natural curiosity. 
 His wicked little yellow eyes never left the boy's face. He 
 seemed unable to make up his mind about him, but what 
 sort of a mind it was that he had to make up greatly puzzled 
 and perplexed Henry Harper, who had only once seen a 
 real live Chinaman before, and that was through the open 
 door of the worst public in Blackhampton. Sing looked 
 capable of anything as he sat scowling and smoking his 
 pipe, but it was a subtler and deeper sort of capability than 
 the sheer Jack-the-Ripperishness of Mr. Thompson. It was 
 reasonably certain that Mr. Thompson would be content 
 with a knife, although he might do very fearful things with 
 it in moments of ecstasy; with Sing there might be every 
 sort of horror known to the annals of crime. 
 
 After Sing had gazed in silence at Henry Harper for about 
 an hour, he pointed to the manhole, which meant that the 
 boy had better get to bed. Henry Harper took the hint as 
 38
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 quickly as possible, not in the least because he wanted to get 
 to a bed of that kind, but because the Chinaman seemed of 
 a piece with Mr. Thompson and the Old Man. Implicit 
 obedience was still the only course for a boy of judgment. 
 Those wicked little yellow eyes, about the size of a pig's, 
 held a promise he dared not put into words. Henry Harper 
 had still a morbid dread of being hurt, in spite of the fact 
 that he had been hurt so often. 
 
 With a heart wildly beating, he crawled into the manhole 
 and he knew at once, oversensitive as he was, that it was 
 full of things that crept. He shuddered and nearly screamed, 
 but fear of the Chinaman restrained him. It was so dark in 
 that chasm between the copper and the galley stairs that he 
 couldn't see his hand when he held it in front of him; also 
 it was so hot, in spite of the cold November rain he had 
 left in the good and great world outside this death trap, 
 that he could hardly breathe at first; yet as soon as he had 
 got used to the temperature he took off Johnnie's overcoat 
 and wrapped his face in it in order to prevent unknown 
 things crawling over it. 
 
 He didn't cry himself to sleep. Tonight he was too far 
 gone for tears. If only he had had a bit of pluck he would 
 have chosen the police. The thing they did was awful, but 
 after all it could not compare with a 'orrible crime on the 
 'igh seas. The police did one thing sure and you knew the 
 worst but there were a thousand ways of murder, and very 
 likely more for Jack the Ripper and a Chinaman. 
 
 He hardly dared to breathe, indeed was scarcely able to 
 do so, with Johnnie's overcoat covering his eyes and mouth. 
 But even as he lay gasping in a sweat of fear, there was just 
 one thing, and the only one he had to which to cling. And 
 he clung to it desperately. It was the sacred apple he had 
 had the luck to wrap in the red-spotted handkerchief which* 
 Percy had given him. 
 
 39
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Sleep was not to be thought of. Something was racing 
 Sand hammering upon his brain. After a lapse of time which 
 seemed like hours, but was only twenty minutes in point of 
 |fact, he began to understand that this turmoil had a definite 
 meaning. An idea was being born. 
 
 When at last it burst upon his mind it was nothing very 
 remarkable. "Henry Harper, you must find your way out 
 of this before it's too late. Never mind the police. You 
 must find your way out of this, Henry Harper." 
 
 He took Johnnie's overcoat from his face and sat up and 1 
 listened. It was absolutely pitch dark. At first there was 
 not a sound. Then he thought he could detect a gentle 
 scratching, a noise made by a rat near his head. But he 
 could hear nothing of the Chinaman. No doubt he had gone 
 to bed. The boy rose with stealthy care, and well it was that 
 he did, otherwise he would have hit his head against the 
 under side of the galley stairs. 
 
 It was so dark that he couldn't see the opening from the 
 manhole into the galley itself. But he found it at last and 
 climbed out cautiously. The lamp in the galley had gone 
 out; there was not a glimmer of light anywhere. He had 
 no knowledge of the Chinaman's whereabouts, he could not 
 find the opening which led into the other parts of the ship. 
 He groped about as noiselessly as he could, hoping to avoid 
 the one and to find the other, and then suddenly there came 
 a truly terrible sound. He had put his foot on the China- 
 man's face. 
 
 He heard the Chinaman get up in his rage ; he even knew 
 where he was although it was too dark to see him. His 
 heart stood still; the Chinaman was feeling for him in the 
 darkness; and then he was obliged to feel himself for the 
 Chinaman in order to avoid him. 
 
 Suddenly he caught a glimpse of a light. He ran towards 
 it not knowing what else to do. But in almost thy same 
 40
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 moment the Chinaman had seen it too, and also had seen 
 him go. Near the light was a ladder which ascended to some 
 unknown region. The boy raced up the ladder with the 
 Chinaman upon his heels. As soon as he got to the top the 
 sharp, wet air caught his face. He was on the deck. He 
 dashed straight ahead ; there was no time for any plan. The 
 Chinaman was at the top of the ladder already and trying 
 to catch him by the leg. 
 
 Running like mad, the boy gained a yard or two along 
 the deck. But he had no* real chance of escape, for he had 
 not the least notion of his bearings or of the hang of the 
 ship. And luck did not favor him at all. Suddenly he 
 tripped over an unseen obstacle and fell heavily, and then 
 the Chinaman came down on him with both knees, fastening 
 fingers upon his throat. 
 
 He was not able to cry out, the Chinaman saw to that. 
 But if Sing was going to kill him, he could only hope it 
 would be soon. This, however, was not the cook's intention. 
 He merely led Henry Harper back to the galley by the ear, 
 gave his arm a ferocious twist which made the boy gasp, 
 and then sent him flying head-first into the stifling darkness 
 of the manhole with the help of a well-timed boot. The boy 
 pitched in such a way that he was half stunned, and when 
 at last he came fully to himself light w T as creeping through 
 a tiny chink in the manhole, and he knew that it was morn- 
 ing. Also he knew by the curious lapping sound made by 
 the waves under the galley stairs that the ship was already 
 at sea. 
 
 XII 
 
 YES, it was true, the ship was already at sea. He was 
 lost. And hardly was there time for his mind to seize 
 this terrible thought when the Chinaman looked into 
 the manhole. As soon as he saw the boy was sitting up, a 
 41
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 broad grin came on his face and he beckoned him out with 
 a finger. 
 
 The boy obeyed at once, and tumbled unsteadily into the 
 galley. But as soon as he tried to stand on his legs he fell 
 ^down. The Chinaman with a deep smile pointed to the 
 "bacon box, and the boy sat on it, and then tried as well as he 
 vcould to prevent his head from going round. 
 
 .Luckily, for the time being, the Chinaman took no fur- 
 'ther notice of Henry Harper, but set about the duties of 
 the day. It was nearly six bells of the morning watch, and 
 he had to serve breakfast for the crew. This consisted 
 partly of a curious mixture that was boiling in the copper, 
 which was called wet hash, and w T as esteemed as a luxury, 
 and partly of an indescribable liquid called coffee, which was 
 brewed out of firewood or anything that came handy, and 
 was not esteemed as anything in particular by the most catho- 
 lic taste. 
 
 Long before the boy's head had done spinning six bells 
 was struck, and the members of the crew came into the galley 
 with their pannikins. There were sixteen all told, excluding 
 the Old Man and the superior officers, of whom Mr. Thomp- 
 son was the chief. Henry Harper's breath was taken away 
 by the sight of this wolfish looking lot. He had seen dis- 
 tinguished members of the criminal classes massed around 
 the Judge's carriage at the Assizes at Blackhampton, just 
 for old sake's sake as it were, and to show that they still 
 took a friendly interest in the Old Cock ; but these were tame 
 and rather amateurish sort of people compared with the 
 crew of the Margaret Carey. 
 
 As a body of seamen the crew of the Margaret Carey was 
 undoubtedly "tough." Dagoes, Yanks, Dutchmen and a 
 couple of not very "white" Britishers; they came into the 
 galley, one after another, took up their pannikins of wet hash, 
 and as soon as they saw and smelled it, told Mr. Sing what 
 42
 
 'A nigger with rings in his ears came forward with a light."
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 they thought of him in terms of the sea. Henry Harper 
 was chilled to the marrow. He was still seated on the bacon 
 box, his head was still humming; but he seemed to remem- 
 ber that Auntie, even on Saturday nights, when she came 
 home from the public, was not as these. 
 
 At the end of a fortnight the boy was still alive. At 
 first he was so dreadfully ill that his mind was distracted 
 from other things. And as he did not lack food as soon as 
 he could eat it, body and soul kept together in a surprising 
 way. 
 
 He was still in great dread of the Chinaman and of the 
 nights of torment in the crawling darkness of the manhole 
 under the galley stairs. But he kept on doing his job as 
 well as he could ; he took care to be alert and obliging to 
 whoever crossed his path; he tried his honest best to please 
 the Chinaman by saving him as much trouble as possible, 
 thus at the end of a fortnight not only his life was intact, but 
 also his skin. 
 
 The truth was he was not a bad sort of boy at all. For 
 one thing he was as sharp as a needle: the gutter, Dame 
 Nature's own academy, had taught him to be that. He never 
 had to be told a thing twice. Also he was uncommonly 
 shrewd and observant, and he very soon came to the con- 
 clusion that the business of his life must be to please the 
 Chinaman. 
 
 In this task he began to succeed better than he could 
 have hoped. Sing, for all his look of unplumbed wickedness, 
 did not treat him so badly as soon as he began to make 
 himself of use. For one thing he got a share of the best 
 food that was going, the scraps from the cabin table, and 
 this was a very important matter for one of the hungriest 
 boys aboard one of the hungriest ships athwart the seas. 
 
 In the course of the third week, Henry Harper began to 
 buck up a bit. His first experience of the motions of a ship 
 4 43
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 at sea had made him horribly unwell. As night after night 
 he lay tossing and moaning as loudly as he dared in the 
 stifling darkness between the boiler and the galley stairs, 
 without a friend in the world and only an unspeakable fate 
 to look forward to, he felt many times that he was going 
 to die and could only hope the end would be easy. 
 
 However, he had learned already that the act of death' 
 is not a simple matter if you have to compass it for yourself. 
 Every morning found him limp as a rag, but always and 
 ever alive. And then gradually he got the turn. Each day 
 he grew a little stronger, a little bolder, so that by the end 
 of the third week he had even begun to feel less afraid of the 
 Chinaman. 
 
 In the middle of the fourth week, he had a bit of real 
 luck. And it came to him in the guise of an inspiration. 
 It was merely that one night when the time came for turn- 
 ing into that stifling inferno which he still dreaded with all 
 his soul, he literally took his courage in his hands. He 
 spread Johnnie's overcoat in the farthest corner of the galley 
 itself, made a pillow of the bundle that Mother had given 
 him, and then without venturing a look in the direction of 
 the Chinaman very quietly lay down and waited, with beat- 
 ing heart, for the worst. 
 
 Strange to say, the worst never happened. For a long 
 time he expected a boot in his ribs. Every nerve was 
 braced to receive it. But the slow minutes passed and no 
 boot came. All this time Sing sat on the bacon box, smoking 
 solemnly, and taking an occasional sip of grog from his 
 pannikin. And then suddenly Henry Harper went quite 
 deliciously to sleep, and dreamed that he was in the West 
 Indies, and had caught a real live parrot for Johnnie. 
 
 It was a really wonderful sleep that he had. He did not 
 wake once till four bells struck in the morning watch, the 
 proper time for starting the duties of the day. These began 
 44
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 with lighting the fire and filling the copper. He rose from 
 his corner a new boy, and there was Sing lying peacefully 
 in the middle of the floor, not taking notice of anyone. And 
 the odd thing was that during the day Sing showed him no 
 disfavor; and when night came and it was time once more 
 to turn in, Henry Harper lay down again in the corner of 
 the galley. There was now no need to await the arrival of 
 the Chinaman's boot. 
 
 XIII 
 
 THE floor of the galley gave Henry Harper his first 
 start on the road to manhood. He got so far along 
 it as to be only a little afraid of the Chinaman. But 
 that was his limit for some little time to come. Meanwhile 
 he continued in the punctual discharge of his duties, and 
 for some months things seemed to go fairly well with him. 
 But at last there came a fatal day when the sinister figure 
 of Mr. Thompson appeared once more upon the scene. The 
 boy was told briefly and roughly that the ship was short- 
 handed, that he was wanted aft at once, and that he had 
 better take his truck along with him. 
 
 From that hour the current of his life was changed. For 
 many a day after that he was to know neither peace nor 
 security. He had been called to bear a part in the terrific 
 fight that went on all day and all night, between this crazy 
 windjammer and the forces of nature. 
 
 For days and weeks the brain of Henry Harper was a 
 confused horror of raging seas, tearing winds, impossible 
 tasks, brutal and savage commands. He did his best, he 
 kept on doing it even when he didn't know what he was 
 doing, but what a best it was! He was buffeted about the 
 slippery decks by the hand of man or the hand of nature; 
 he understood less than half of what was said to him, and 
 45
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 even that he didn't know how to set about doing. The 
 Margaret Carey was so ill found that she seemed at the 
 mercy of the great gales and the mighty seas of the At- 
 lantic. She was flung and tossed to all points of the com- 
 pass ; her decks were always awash ; her furious and at times 
 half demented Old Man was always having to heave her to, 
 but Henry Harper was never a hand's turn of use on the 
 deck of that hell ship. 
 
 He was so unhandy that in the port watch they christened 
 him "Sailor." There wasn't a blame thing he could do. 
 He was so sick and sorry, he was so scared out of his life 
 that the Old Man used to get furious at the mere sight of 
 him. 
 
 For weeks the boy hardly knew what it was to have a 
 whole skin or a dry shirt. The terrible seas got higher and 
 higher as they came nearer the Horn, the wind got icier, the 
 Old Man's temper got worse, the ship got crazier, the crew 
 got smaller and smaller by accidents and disease; long 
 before Cape Stiff was reached in mid-Atlantic the Margaret 
 Carey was no habitation for a human soul. 
 
 Sailor's new berth in the half-deck was always awash. 
 Every time he turned into it he stood a good chance of being 
 drowned like a rat in a hole. The cold was severe. He 
 had no oilskins or any proper seaman's gear, except a pair 
 of makeshift leggings from the slop chest. Day after day 
 he was soaked to the skin, and in spite of Johnnie's overcoat 
 and all the clothes in the bundle Mother had given him, he 
 could seldom keep dry. 
 
 Every man aboard the Margaret Carey, except the Ol'd 
 Man and Mr. Thompson, and perhaps the second mate, Mr. 
 MacFarlane, in his rare moments of optimism, was convinced 
 she would never see Frisco. The crew was a bad one. Da- 
 goes are not reckoned much as seamen, the Dutchmen were 
 sullen and stupid, none of the Yankees and English was 
 46
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 really quite white. The seas were like mountains; often 
 during the day and night all available hands had to be lit- 
 erally fighting them for their lives. 
 
 All through this time Henry Harper found only one thing 
 to do, and that was to keep on keeping on. But the wonder 
 was he was able even to do that. Often he felt so weak and 
 miserable that he could hardly drag himself along the 
 deck. He had had more than one miraculous escape from 
 being washed overboard. His time must come soon enough, 
 but he could take no step to bring it nearer, because he felt 
 that never again would he be able to arrange the matter for 
 himself. Something must have snapped that night he had 
 waited on the wrong rail for the engine. Bowery Joe, the 
 toughest member of the crew, a regular down-east Yankee, 
 who liked to threaten him with a knife because of the look 
 on his face, had told him that he ought to have been born 
 a muddy dago, and that he was "short of sand." 
 
 There seemed to be something missing that others of his 
 kind possessed. But he had many things to worry about just 
 then. He just kept on keeping on out of the way of the 
 Old Man as well as he could out of the way of the fist 
 of the second mate out of the way of the boots and the 
 knives of all and sundry out of the way of the raging, 
 murderous sea that, after all, was his only friend. The time 
 came when sheer physical misery forced him to be always 
 hiding from the other members of the crew. 
 
 One morning the Old Man caught him skulking below 
 after all hands had been piped on deck to get the canvas 
 off her. The Old Man said not a word, but carried him 
 up the companion by the nape of the neck as if he had been 
 a kitten, brought him on the main deck, and fetched him 
 up in the midst of his mates at the foot of the mast. He 
 then ordered him aloft with the rest of them. 
 
 In absolute desperation Sailor began to climb. He knew 
 47
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 that if he disobeyed he would be flung into the sea. Clinging, 
 feet and claws, like a cat, for the sake of the life he hadn't 
 the courage to lose, he fought his way up somehow through 
 the icy wind and the icier spray that was ever leaping up 
 and hitting him, no matter how high he went. He fought 
 his way as far as the lower yardarm. Here he clung help- 
 less, dazed with terror, faint with exhaustion. Commands 
 were screamed from below, which he could not understand, 
 which he could not have obeyed had he understood them, 
 since he now lacked the power to stir from his perch. His 
 hands were frozen stiff; there was neither use nor breath in 
 his body; the motions of the ship were such that if he tried 
 to shift a finger he would be flung to the deck he could no 
 longer see, and be pulped like an apple. So he clung fran- 
 tically to the shrouds, trying to keep his balance, although he 
 had merely to let go an instant in order to end his troubles. 
 But this he could not do; and in the meantime commands 
 and threats were howled at him in vain. 
 
 "Come down, then," bawled the Old Man at last, beside 
 himself with fury. 
 
 But the boy couldn't move one way or the other. At that 
 moment it was no more possible to come down than it was 
 to go up higher. 
 
 They had to roll up the sails without his aid. After that 
 the fury of the wind and the sea seemed to abate a bit. Per- 
 haps this was more Henry Harper's fancy than anything 
 else; but at least it enabled him to gather the strength to 
 move from his perch and slide down the futtock shrouds to 
 the deck. 
 
 The Old Man was waiting for him at the foot of the 
 mast. He took him by the throat. 
 
 "One o' you fetch me a bight o' cord," he roared quietly. 
 He had to roar to make himself heard at all, but it was a 
 quiet sort of roar that meant more than it could express. 
 48
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 He was promptly obeyed by two or three. There was 
 going to be a bit of fun with Sailor. 
 
 Frank, an Arab and reckoned nothing as a seaman, was 
 the first with the cord, but Louis, a Peruvian, was hard on 
 his heels. The boy wondered dimly what was going to 
 happen. 
 
 The Old Man took hold of his wrists and tied them so 
 tightly behind him that the double twist of cord cut into 
 his thin flesh. But he didn't feel it very much just then. 
 
 The next thing the boy knew was that he was being 
 dragged along the deck. Then he realized that he was being 
 lashed to the mizzen fife-rail while several of the crew stood 
 around grinning approvingly. And when this was done the}' 
 left him there. They left him unable to sit or to lie down, 
 or even to stand, because the seas continually washed his 
 feet from under him. There was nothing to protect him 
 from the pitiless wind of the Atlantic that cut through his 
 wretched body like a knife, or the yet more pitiless waves 
 that broke over it, soaking him to the skin and half dash- 
 ing out his life. Mercifully the third sea that came, tower- 
 ing like a mountain and then seeming to burst right over 
 him, although such was not the case, left him insensible. 
 
 He didn't know exactly how or when it was that he came 
 to. He had a dim idea that he was very slowly dying a 
 worse death than he had ever imagined it was possible for 
 anything to die. It was a process that went on and on; 
 and then there came a blank; and then it started again, and 
 he remembered he was still alive and that he was still dying; 
 and then another blank; and then there was something alive 
 quite near him; and then he remembered Mother and tried 
 to gasp her name. 
 
 When at last Henry Harper came to himself he found he 
 was in the arms of Mr. Thompson. The Old Man with the 
 devil in his eyes was standing by; all around the Horn he had 
 49
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 been drinking heavily. Mr. MacFarlane, Mr. Petersen thv 
 third mate, and some of the others were also standing by. 
 
 The boy heard the Old Man threaten to put Mr. Thomp- 
 son in irons, and heard him call him a mutinous dog. Mr. 
 Thompson made no reply, but no dog could have looked 
 more mutinous than he did as he held the boy in his arms. 
 There was a terrible look on his face, and Mr. MacFarlane 
 and the others held back a bit. 
 
 It chanced, however, that there was just one thought at 
 the back of the Old Man's mind, and it was this that 
 saved Mr. Thompson, also the boy and perhaps the ship. 
 He feared no man, he had no God when he was in drink, 
 and he didn't set much store by the devil as a working insti- 
 tution ; but drunk or sober he was always a first-rate seaman 
 and he cared a great deal about his ship. And he knew 
 very well that except himself Mr. Thompson was the only 
 first-rate seaman aboard the Margaret Carey, and that with- 
 out his aid there was little chance of the vessel reaching 
 Frisco. It was this thought at the back of the Old Man's 
 mind that prevented his putting Mr. Thompson in irons. 
 
 The boy lay longer than he knew, hovering much nearer 
 to death than he guessed, in Mr. Thompson's bunk, with 
 Mr. Thompson's spare oilskins over him, his dry blankets 
 under him, and Mr. Thompson moistening his lips with grog 
 every few minutes for several hours. It was a pretty near I 
 go; had Henry Harper known how near it was he might 
 have taken his chance. But he didn't know, and in the course 
 of two or three days nature and Mr. Thompson and per- 
 haps a change in the weather pulled him through. 
 
 All the way out from London until the third day past 
 the Horn the weather had been as dirty as it knew how to 
 be; and it knows how to be very dirty indeed aboard a 
 windjammer on the fifty-sixth degree of latitude in the 
 month of December, which is not the worst time of the year. 
 50
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 But it suddenly took quite a miraculous turn for the better. 
 The wind allowed Mr. Thompson to shift the course of the 
 Margaret Carey a couple of points in two hours, so that 
 before that day was out the old tub, which could not have 
 been so crazy as she seemed to Henry Harper, was running 
 before it in gala order with all her canvas spread. 
 
 During the following morning the sun was seen for the 
 first time for some weeks, and the port watch gave it a cheer 
 of encouragement. By nightfall the wind and the sea were 
 behaving very well, all things considered, and they shared 
 the credit with Mr. Thompson of having saved the life of 
 Henry Harper. 
 
 The Old Man's temper began to mend with the weather. 
 He was not all bad very few men are it was merely as 
 Mr. Thompson had said, that when drink was in him he 
 was a devil. The dirtier the weather the more drink there 
 was in him, as a rule. When the sun shone again and 
 things began to look more hopeful, the Old Man's temper 
 improved out of all knowledge. 
 
 The Old Man set such store by seamanship that it was 
 the one quality he respected in others. His world was di- 
 vided into those who were good seamen and those who were 
 not good seamen. If you were a good seaman he would never 
 forget it in his dealings with you; if you were not a good 
 seaman, whatever else you might be, you could go to hell for 
 all that he cared. And of all the seamen he had shipped 
 in the course of a pretty long experience as a master mariner, 
 he had never, in his own judgment, come across the equal 
 of Mr. Thompson. This was his fifth time round the Horn 
 with that gentleman as mate, and each voyage increased the 
 Old Man's respect for his remarkable ability. He had never 
 seen anything better than the style in which the mate got the 
 old ship before the wind; nothing could be more perfect 
 than the way she was moving now under all her canvas ; and 
 51
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 that evening in the cabin, after supper, the Old Man broached 
 a bottle of his "pertickler" and decided upon some little 
 amende to the mate for having threatened to put him in 
 irons. 
 
 "That bye is no use on deck," he said. "He had better 
 come here and make himself useful until he gets stronger." 
 
 The Old Man meant this for a great concession, and Mr. 
 Thompson accepted it in the spirit in which it was offered. 
 The Old Man now regarded the boy as part and parcel of 
 Mr. Thompson's property, and it was by no means certain, 
 such is the subtle psychology of active benevolence, that 
 Mr. Thompson did not regard the boy in that light also. At 
 any rate the boy looked on the mate as his natural protector. 
 Henry Harper craved for someone to whom he could render 
 homage and obedience. He would have reverenced the Old 
 Man had he been worthy of such an emotion; as it was he 
 had to fall back on the mate, a rough man to look at, and a 
 very bad one to cross, but one to whom he owed his life, and 
 the only friend he had. 
 
 It took Henry Harper a fortnight to get fairly on his legs 
 again. Then he was able to come on deck as far as the break 
 of the poop. Much seemed to have happened to the world 
 since he had been below. He found the sun shining glori- 
 ously; there was hardly a puff of wind; the crew in high 
 good humor were cheerfully mending sails. It was not the 
 same ship, it was not the same sea, it was not the same 
 tvorld he had left a long fortnight ago. He was amazed 
 and thrilled. The slum-bred waif had no idea that any 
 world could be like this. Moreover, the convalescent stage 
 of a dangerous illness was cleansing and renewing him. 
 For the first time since he had been born he forgot the bur- 
 den of his inheritance. He was suddenly intoxicated by the 
 extraordinary majesty and beauty of the universe. 
 
 The sea, what an indescribably glorious thing! The sky 
 52
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 without a cloud in it ! He had never seen any sky at Black- 
 hampton to compare with this. The air, how clean and 
 bright it was! The mollymawks with their beautiful white 
 breasts were skimming the green water. It was a glorious 
 world. He heard a dago singing at his work. He almost 
 wanted to sing as well. 
 
 He got a needle and some packthread and sat down on 
 the afterhatch and suddenly made up his mind to do his 
 best. He could make nothing of his life, or of his circum- 
 stances. His wretched body was all sore and bruised and 
 broken ; his head was still going round and round ; he didn't 
 know what he was, or why he was, or where he was; but a 
 very glorious earth had been made by Somebody, just as a 
 very miserable thing had been made by Somebody. How- 
 ever, let him keep on keeping on. 
 
 He had gone too far, thus early in life, for self-pity. 
 Besides there was too much happening around him, too 
 much to look at, too much to do to think very deeply about 
 himself. Yes, it was a very wonderful world. The sun 
 began to warm his veins as he sat plying his needle, such a 
 sun as he had never known. The colors all around were 
 simply marvelous; blues and yellows, greens and purples! 
 There was nothing at Blackhampton to compare with them. 
 The dago seated near had set down his needle, had dabbled 
 his hand in the water, had begun to sing louder than ever. 
 Yes, Blackhampton was not to be compared with such a 
 world as this. 
 
 For the next three weeks things began to go a bit kinder 
 for Henry Harper. Each day grew warmer, more gor- 
 geous; there was no wind to speak of; the sea became so 
 smooth that it might have been the West Norton and Bags- 
 worth canal. And as it was clearly realized by the rest of 
 the crew that for some mysterious reason Sailor was now 
 under the extremely powerful protection of Mr. Thompson, 
 
 53
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 they were careful to keep their hands off him, and also their 
 boots. This made life a little duller for them, but a bit 
 easier for Henry Harper. 
 
 XIV 
 
 THREE weeks or so this good life went on. Horror 
 unspeakable was at the back of the boy's mind. 
 There were things he could never forget as long as 
 life lasted. At any moment they might return upon him; 
 but during those days of sun and calm Henry Harper was 
 in an enchanted world. It was so warm and fair that he 
 retrieved Johnny's overcoat and Mother's bundle from his 
 bunk where they had been a long time soaking, spread them 
 on the deck to dry, and had them for a pillow when he slept 
 that night underneath the stars. 
 
 But the good days were soon at an end. Each one after 
 the twenty-second got hotter and hotter; the twenty-fourth 
 was quite unpleasant ; the heat on the twenty-seventh became 
 almost unbearable. They were now in the doldrums in a 
 dead calm. 
 
 "Shouldn't wonder if we find trouble before we get to 
 the China seas." Thus Mr. MacFarlane, the second mate, a 
 prophetic Scotsman, in Henry Harper's hearing. 
 
 Mr. MacFarlane was right, as he generally was in these 
 matters more so perhaps than he had reckoned, for they 
 managed to find a good deal of trouble before they got to the 
 China seas. 
 
 For several days there was no stir in the air. The heat 
 grew worse; and then one afternoon it suddenly became 
 very dark, without any apparent reason. Mr. Thompson 
 went about with a face uglier than usual, and Mr. Mac- 
 Farlane said they were cutting straight into the tail of a 
 54
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 typhoon; and then there was an anxious consultation with 
 the Old Man on deck. 
 
 Mr. Thompson's face got uglier as the sky got darker, 
 and the sea became like a mixture of oil and lead. It was 
 almost impossible to breathe even on deck; there wasn't a 
 capful of air in the sails or out of them; all the crew had 
 their tongues out; and instead of eating his supper that 
 evening the Old Man opened a bottle of his "pertickler." 
 
 The boy turned in that night, in the new berth that had 
 been found for him by Mr. Thompson's orders, with a feel- 
 ing that something was going to happen. For one thing the 
 Old Man looked like having the devil in him again before 
 the morning. Moreover, the heat was so intense that sleep 
 seemed out of the question. 
 
 However, the boy fell asleep unexpectedly, and was 
 presently awakened in a stifling darkness by a sudden awful 
 and incredible sound of rushing and tearing. He sat up 
 gasping for air and wondering what it was that had 
 happened. 
 
 Afraid to stay where he was, for it was certain that some- 
 thing terrible had occurred, he got out of his bunk and 
 groped his way as well as he could through the darkness, 
 and at last made his way on deck. Here it was as black as 
 it was below ; all the lights were out ; the sky was like pitch ; 
 the sea could not be seen ; but he knew at once the cause of 
 the tearing and rushing. It was the wind. 
 
 The wind was blowing in a manner he would not have 
 thought to be possible. Its fury was stupendous. It was 
 impossible to stand up in it, therefore he did the only thing 
 that he could: he lay down. 
 
 Some time he lay on the deck, unable to move forward a 
 yard, or even to return whence he came, such was the press- 
 ure that held him down. Then it was he felt a new kind of 
 terror. This was more than physical, it seemed beyond the 
 55
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 mind of man. They had had high winds and fierce storms 
 at Blackhampton, but never had he known or guessed that 
 there could be a thing of this kind. Such a wind was out- 
 side nature altogether. It seemed to be tearing the ship into 
 little bits. 
 
 Several times he tried to rise to his feet in the darkness 
 and find his way below, but it was no use. Flesh and blood 
 could not stand an instant against such a rage as that. And 
 then as he lay down again full length, clutching the hot deck 
 itself for safety, he began to wonder why no one else was 
 about. Slowly the truth came to him, but not at first in a 
 form in which he could recognize or understand it. It 
 seemed to creep upon him like a nightmare. All the crew 
 and Mr. Thompson and the Old Man had been blown over- 
 board, and he was drifting about the world, a strange unbe- 
 lievable world, alone on the ship. 
 
 He began to shriek with terror. Yet he didn't know that. 
 It was not possible to hear the sound of his own voice. He 
 lay writhing on the deck in a state of dementia. A caveman 
 caught and soused by his first thunderstorm could not have 
 been more pitiable. He was alone, in this unknown sea, in 
 this endless night, with all eternity around him. 
 
 Again he tried to rise from the deck, but he was still held 
 down, gasping and choking, by a crushing weight of wind. 
 It would be a merciful thing if the ship went to the bottom. 
 But even if it did his case might be no better. Then came 
 the thought that this was what had happened. The ship 
 had foundered, and this tempest and this appalling darkness 
 were what he had heard the Reverend Rogers speak of, at a 
 very nice tea party at the Brookfield Street Mission Hall to 
 which he had once been invited, as "the life to come." 
 
 Henry Harper remembered that "the life to come" was 
 to be a very terrifying business for "those who had done 
 evil," and according to the Reverend Rogers all men had 
 56
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 done evil; moreover, he had dwelt at great length on the 
 Wrath of the Supreme Being who was called God. 
 
 Henry Harper was in the presence of God. This terrific 
 wind in which it was impossible for any created thing to 
 exist was the Wrath of the Supreme Being. Such a thought 
 went beyond reason. It was a key which unlocked secret 
 chambers in the inherited memory of Henry Harper. Many 
 were the half remembered things of which he had had expe- 
 rience through former eons of time. The idea of God was 
 the chief of these. 
 
 Half mad with subconscious recollection, he began to 
 crawl like a snake on his belly along the deck. The key was 
 unlocking one chamber after another in his soul. Now he 
 was a fire worshiper in a primeval forest; now he was 
 cleansing his spirit in the blood of sacrifice; now he was 
 kneeling and praying; now he was dancing round a pile of 
 stones. He was flooded with a subconscious memory of 
 world-old worship of the Unseen, a propitiation of the thing 
 called God. 
 
 He was a caveman in the presence of deity. Shuddering 
 in every pulse of his being he pressed his face to the hot 
 boards of the deck. The secret chambers of his mind were 
 assailing him with things unspeakable. Even the Reverend 
 Rogers could not have imagined them. 
 
 All at once he rolled up against something soft in the 
 darkness. With a thrill of hope he knew it was a living 
 thing. It was a dago bereft like himself. Lying with his 
 sweating face pressed to the deck, he also was in the pres- 
 ence of deity. 
 
 The noise was too great for their voices to be heard, but 
 each knew that the other was alive, and they lay side by side 
 for two hours, contriving to save their reason by the sense 
 of each other's nearness. 
 
 After that time had passed they were able to crawl into 
 57
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 shelter. Here they found others of the crew in varying 
 states of terror and stupefaction. But it was now getting 
 lighter, and the wind was blowing less. The worst was 
 over. It seemed very remarkable that the Margaret Carey 
 was still afloat. 
 
 In two hours more the wind had died. An hour after 
 that they saw the sun again and the ship kept her course as 
 if nothing had occurred. Indeed, nothing had occurred to 
 speak of, in Mr. Thompson's opinion, except that two mem- 
 bers of the crew had fetched away and gone overboard, and 
 they could ill afford to lose them, being undermanned 
 already. 
 
 It was now the boy's duty to wait on the Old Man in the 
 cabin. This was more to his taste than having to lend a 
 hand in the port watch. He w r as not the least use on deck, 
 and was assured by everybody that he never would be, but 
 in the cabin he was very alert and diligent, and less ineffi- 
 cient than might have been expected. He was really very 
 quick in some ways, and he laid himself out to please the 
 Old Man with his cheerful willingness, not that he felt par- 
 ticularly willing or cheerful either, but he knew that was 
 the only way to save his skin. At any rate, Sailor was not 
 going back into the port watch if he could possibly help it. 
 
 For such a boy as he, with an eager, imaginative brain 
 always asking questions of its profoundly ignorant owner, 
 the cabin was a far more interesting place than the half-deck 
 or the forecastle. There was a measure of society in the 
 cabin; Mr. Thompson and Mr. MacFarlane sometimes 
 fraternized with the Old Man, after supper, and their dis- 
 course when they turned to and smoked their pipes and 
 discussed a noggin of the Old Man's "pertickler," of which 
 they were great connoisseurs, was very well worth hearing. 
 
 Henry Harper found that when the Old Man was not 
 upset by the weather which generally brought on a drink- 
 58
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 ing attack he was human more or less. Although prone to 
 outbursts of fury, in which anything might occur, he was by 
 no means all bad. In fact, he was rather by way of being 
 religious when the elements were in his favor. When at a 
 loose end he would read a chapter of the Bible, which was 
 of the large family order, adorned the cabin sideboard, and 
 had apparently been handed down from father to son. If 
 the weather was good there was often an instructive theo- 
 logical discussion with Mr. MacFarlane after supper. The 
 second mate was very full of Biblical lore. His interpreta- 
 tion of Holy Writ was not always identical with that of his 
 superior officer, and being a Scotsman and % man of great 
 parts and character, he never temporized 9r waived a point. 
 Sometimes he flatly contradicted the Old Man who, to 
 Henry Harper's intense surprise, would take it lying down, 
 being an earnest seeker after light in these high matters. 
 For all that, some of the Old Man's Biblical theories were 
 quite unshakable, as, for instance, that Jonah could not have 
 been a first-rate seaman. 
 
 In spite of being short-handed, things began to go a 
 bit better. There was very little wind, the sea was like 
 glass, the sun was beautifully warm all day, and at night 
 a warm and glowing sky was sown thickly with stars. 
 Rather late one afternoon, while the Old Man was drink- 
 ing his tea, Mr. MacFarlane appeared in the cabin with a 
 look of importance, and reported land to starboard. 
 
 "Nonsense, Mr. MacFarlane," said the Old Man. "We 
 s*fe a good nine days from anywhere." 
 
 Mr. MacFarlane, however, maintained with polite firm- 
 ness land to starboard not being a theological matter 
 ihat land there was on the starboard bow, N. by NE. as 
 well as he could reckon. 
 
 "Nonsense, Mr. MacFarlane," said the Old Man. 
 
 But he rose from his tea at once, took his binoculars and 
 5 59
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 clambered on deck. A little while afterwards he returned 
 in a state of odd excitement, accompanied by Mr. Thomp- 
 son, and they spread out a chart on the cabin table. 
 
 "By God," said the Old Man, "it's the Island of San 
 Pedro." And he suddenly brought his fist down on the 
 chart. Moreover, he pronounced the name with a curious 
 intensity. "By God," he said, "I haven't seen that island 
 for four and twenty years. We tried to dodge a typhoon, 
 but was caught in her, and went aground on the Island of 
 San Pedro. There was only me and the ship's bye as lived 
 to tell the tale." 
 
 The voice of the Old Man had grown hoarse, and in his 
 eyes was a glow of dark excitement. Suddenly they met 
 full and square the startled eyes of the boy who was lis- 
 tening eagerly. 
 
 "Only me and the ship's bye," said the Old Man, his 
 voice falling lower. "We lived six wfcks on shellfish and 
 the boots and clothes of the dead." 
 
 The voice of the Old Man sank to a thrilling whisper. 
 He then said sharply: "Bye, a bottle o' brandy." 
 
 When Henry Harper brought the brandy his face was 
 like a piece of white chalk. 
 
 "Only me and the ship's bye," repeated the Old Man in a 
 hoarse whisper. "The others went ravin' mad. We knifed 
 'em one by one; it was the kindest thing to do. The bye 
 didn't go ravin' mad till afterwards. And there weren't no 
 Board of Trade Inquiry." 
 
 "No, sir," said Mr. Thompson, nodding his ugly head 
 and speaking in a slow, inhuman voice. 
 
 "No Board o' Trade inquiry," said the Old Man. "Nine 
 men and the ship's bye on the Island o' San Pedro, latitude 
 eighteen degrees, longitude one hundred and twenty-four 
 degrees." He placed his finger on the chart on the cabin 
 table. "There y'are, Mr. Thompson. And on'y me to tell 
 60
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 the tale. The bye was gibbering like a baboon by the time 
 he was fetched aboard the Para Wanka, Chinese barque out 
 o' Honolulu. I was a bit touched meself. Thirteen weeks 
 in 'orspital. Remarkable recovery. That's the knife on the 
 sideboard in the leather case." 
 
 Mr. Thompson took the knife in his hand reverently. 
 
 "No Board o' Trade inquiry, sir," he said. 
 
 "No Board o' Trade inquiry," said the Old Man, taking 
 a good drink of neat brandy. "Come on deck and let us 
 have another look at the Island of San Pedro." 
 
 Overcome by a sense of uncanny fascination the boy fol- 
 lowed the Old Man and the mate up the companion and to 
 the deck. Long the Old Man gazed at the island through 
 his glass, but made no further remark. Then, having seen 
 enough of it, he handed the glass to Mr. Thompson, who 
 made no remark either, but gazed with a mask of steel at 
 the Island of San Pedro. 
 
 Mr. MacFarlane, who stood by, pointed with his finger 
 suddenly. 
 
 "Sharks," he said. 
 
 "Aye," said the Old Man with queer eyes, "these roads 
 is full of 'em. Aye, there they are, the pretties!" 
 
 The boy followed Mr. MacFarlane's finger over the deck 
 rail, and sure enough, quite near to the ship was a number 
 of creatures whose upturned bellies shone a strange dead 
 white. 
 
 "Come every morning to look at us, the pretties, on the 
 Island of San Pedro." The Old Man laughed in a queer 
 way. "The tide brought 'em more than one nice breakfast, 
 but they never had no luck with me and that bye. He ! he ! 
 he!" 
 
 The Old Man went down to the cabin rather unsteadily, 
 but laughing all the way. 
 
 61
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 XV 
 
 SHOULDN'T wonder if it's a wet night," said 
 Mr. MacFarlane to the mate in the hearing of 
 the boy. 
 
 This was a technicality that Henry Harper didn't under- 
 stand, but it held no mystery for Mr. Thompson, who 
 smiled as he alone could and growled, "Yep." 
 
 After supper, the Old Man sat late and drank deep. He 
 pressed both his officers to share with him. He was always 
 passing the bottle, but though Mr. Thompson and Mr. 
 MacFarlane were able to keep a stout course, they were 
 simply not in it with the Old Man. For one thing both 
 were men of principle who preferred rum to brandy, and 
 very lucidly for the Margaret Carey, Mr. Thompson in 
 certain aspects of his nature preferred his ship to either. 
 
 The Old Man talked much that night of the Island of 
 San Pedro, overmuch perhaps for the refined mind of the 
 second mate. The boy stood listening behind the Old 
 Man's chair, ready to go about as soon as the Old Man 
 should be at the end of the bottle. 
 
 "No, we didn't touch human flesh," said the Old Man. 
 "I give you my word of honor as a Christian man. But we 
 caught one o' the Chinamen at it two of us was China- 
 men an' we drew lots as to who should do him in. There 
 was three white men left at that time, including myself 
 and excluding the bye. Andrews it was, our bosun, who 
 drawed the ticket, and as soon as he drawed it I thought he 
 looked young for the work. He wanted to pass it to me, 
 but I said no he'd drawed the ticket an' he must do the 
 will o' God." 
 
 " 'Scuse my interrupting, sir," said Mr. MacFarlane, 
 "but how did ye know it was the will o' God ?" 
 62
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Because he'd drawed the ticket, you fool," snapped the 
 Old Man. "Didn't I say he'd drawed the ticket ?" 
 
 "Yep," nodded Mr. Thompson. 
 
 "Very well, then," said the Old Man with acerbity. "It 
 was up to Andrews to do the will o' God. He said he'd not 
 do it then, but he'd wait until the morning. I said, 'There's 
 no time like the present,' but he was Scotch, and he was 
 obstinate, an' the mornin* never come for Andrews. He 
 began to rave in the night, as we all lay together on the 
 sand, with the Chinaman in the middle, and at the screech 
 o' dawn when I give him the knife, I see at once he was off 
 his rocker." 
 
 "Up the pole, sir?" asked Mr. MacFarlane, politely. 
 
 "Yes, blast you," said the Old Man. "Don't you under- 
 stand plain English? Bye, another bottle." 
 
 As the boy's livid face was caught by the lamp on the 
 table while he bent over it with the new bottle, the Old 
 Man suddenly laughed. There was something in the boy's 
 eyes that went straight to his heart. 
 
 "By God!" he said, refilling his glass. "That's a good 
 idea. We'll put Sailor here ashore on the Island o' San 
 Pedro first thing in the morning. We will, so help me!" 
 And the Old Man winked solemnly at Mr. Thompson and 
 the second mate. 
 
 Mr. Thompson smiled and the second mate laughed. 
 The idea itself was humorous, and the Old Man's method 
 of expressing it seemed to lend it point. 
 
 "That's a good idea," said the Old Man, bringing his fist 
 down so sharply that the brandy out of his glass slopped 
 over on the tablecloth. "Sailor here shall be put ashore at 
 sunrise on the Island of San Pedro. We'll never be able 
 to make a man of him aboard the Margaret Carey. We'll 
 see what the tigers and the lions and the wolves and hyenas 
 '11 do with him on the Island o' San Pedro." 
 63
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Sirpints, Cap'n?" inquired Mr. Thompson innocently, 
 as he returned the look of his superior officer. 
 
 "God bless me, yes, Mr. Thompson!" said the Old Man 
 in a thrilling voice. "That's why you've p;ot to keep out o' 
 the trees. My advice to Sailor is arc ye attendin', young 
 feller? always sleep on sand. Sirpints won't face sand, 
 and it's something to know that, Mr. Thompson, when you 
 are all on your lonesome on the Island of San Pedro." 
 
 "I've heard that afore, sir," said Mr. Thompson, impres- 
 sively. "Never knowed the truth o' it, though." 
 
 "True enough, Mr. Thompson," said the Old Man. "Sir- 
 pints has no use for sand. Worries 'em, as you might say." 
 
 "I've always understood, sir," said Mr. MacFarlane, 
 whose humor was apt to take a pragmatical turn, "that it's 
 only one sort o' sirpint what's shy o' sand." 
 
 The Old Man eyed the second mate sullenly. 
 
 "O' course it is," he said, "and that's the on'y sort 
 they've got on the Island o' San Pedro. The long, round- 
 bellied sort, as don't bite but squeeges." 
 
 "And swallers yer?" said Mr. Thompson. 
 
 "And swallers yer. Pythons, I think they're called, or 
 am I thinkin' o' boar constrictors?" 
 
 "Pythons, sir," said Mr. MacFarlane. "What swallows 
 i a bullock as easy as it swallows a baby." 
 i "Yes, that's right." The Old Man turned to grin at the 
 boy, but there was pathos in his voice. "Sailor, my bye, 
 you must keep out o' the trees. Promise me, Sailor, you'll 
 keep out o' the trees." 
 
 The boy had to hold on by the table. The laughter that 
 rang in his ears could only have one meaning. He knew 
 that the Old Man with the drink in him would be as good 
 as his word. Suddenly, by a queer trick of the mind, Henry 
 Harper was again a newsboy crying, " 'Orrible Crime on the 
 'Igh Seas," along the streets of Blackhampton. 
 64
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 XVI 
 
 SAILOR didn't sleep that night in his bunk in the 
 half-deck but lay in the lee of the chart-house look- 
 ing up at the stars. Now and again, he could hear 
 little plop-plops in the water, and these he knew were 
 sharks. It was a night like heaven itself not that Sailor 
 had had much experience of heaven so far wonderfully 
 calm, with the stars so bright that even as he lay he could 
 see the outline of the Island of San Pedro. It was so clear 
 in the starlight that he could see little dark patches here and 
 there rising to the skyline. These were trees he was sure. 
 
 He didn't try to sleep, but lay waiting for the dawn, not 
 thinking of what he should do, or what he ought to do. 
 What was the use? He was alone and quite helpless, and 
 he was now in a state altogether beyond mere terror; he 
 was face to face with that which his mind could not meet. 
 But he was as sure as those stars were in the sky, that as 
 soon as it was light the Old Man would put him ashore on 
 the Island of San Pedro, and that even Mr. Thompson 
 would raise no protest. 
 
 Once or twice he tried to think, but it was no use. His 
 brain was going. He must lie there and wait. How long 
 he lay he didn't know, but it seemed hours before he heard 
 the morning watch come on deck, and even then it was some 
 while from daylight. For a long, long time he lay stupefied, 
 unable to do anything but listen for the stealthy plop- 
 plop of the sharks in the water. And when the daylight 
 came, at first it was so imperceptible that he did not notice 
 it. 
 
 At last the sun got up, and then he saw that right away 
 to starboard the sky was truly wonderful, a mass of delicate 
 color which the eye could not grasp. For a moment, the 
 65
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 soul of Henry Harper was entranced. Heaven itself was 
 opening before him. His mind went back to the Reverend 
 Rogers and the Brookfield Street Mission. With a stab of 
 shame for having so long forgotten them, he suddenly 
 recalled the words of the Reverend Rogers upon the sub- 
 ject of the Golden Gates. Flooded by an intolerable rush 
 of memories, he imagined he could see and hear the Choir 
 Invisible. The fowls of the air were heralding a marvelous 
 sunrise in the Pacific. 
 
 For a moment he forgot the Island of San Pedro. 
 Another door of memory had been unlocked. He was in a 
 flood of golden light. There straight before him were the 
 gates of paradise. He was looking at the home of God. 
 Suddenly Henry Harper thought he could hear the voices 
 of the angels. He strained his eyes to starboard. Real 
 angels with wings would be a wonderful sight. The fowls 
 of the air were in chorus, the sharks were plopping in the 
 water, the gates of heaven were truly marvelous orange, 
 crimson, gold, purple, every color he had ever seen or 
 imagined, and he had seen and imagined many, was now 
 filling his eyes with ecstasy. At every pore of being he was 
 sensing light and sound. He was like a harp strung up. 
 And then in the midst of it all, there came the voice of the 
 Old Man as he climbed on deck, with Mr. Thompson at his 
 heels. And then . . . and then . . . the heavens opened 
 . . . and Henry Harper saw . . . and Henry Harper 
 saw. . . . 
 
 There was a great plop in the water, much nearer than 
 that of the sharks. There followed heartrending screams 
 and cries, enough to appall the soul of man. All hands 
 rushed to the side of the ship. 
 
 "It's on'y Sailor," said the Old Man, with a drunken 
 growl. "Let him drown." 
 
 66
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 In the next instant there came another great plop in the 
 water. 
 
 "What the hell!" roared the Old Man. 
 
 "Please, sir, Mr. Thompson's gone for him." 
 
 "Mr. who? . . . blast you!" 
 
 "Mr. Thompson, sir." 
 
 "Then lower the gig." The Old Man began to stamp 
 
 up and down the deck, roaring like a maniac. "Lower the 
 
 gig, I tell ye." His fingers were the first on the davits. 
 
 "And all hands pipe up a chantey . . . louder . . . louder 
 
 . . . blast you! ... to keep off those sharks." 
 
 The Old Man's voice was hoarse and terrible, as he 
 worked like a demon to launch the boat. 
 
 "Louder, louder, blast you!" he kept roaring. The 
 smooth, dead-white bellies lay all around, shining in the 
 sunrise. The Old Man was in a frenzy; it seemed as if the 
 boat would never be got into the water. 
 
 At last it was launched and the Old Man was the first to 
 jump into it, still roaring like one possessed. He beat the 
 water furiously with a piece of spar. But Mr. Thompson 
 with the boy in tow seemed to be holding his own very well. 
 Either the sharks had not seen them, or they dare not 
 approach in the midst of that terrific outcry. 
 
 They were soon in the boat, Mr. Thompson being a pow- 
 erful swimmer; and when at last they were back on the 
 deck of the Margaret Carey, the boy lay gasping and the 
 mate stood by like some large and savage dog, shaking the 
 water out of his eyes. 
 
 "Whatever made you do that, Mr. Thompson?" expostu- 
 lated the Old Man. He was a good deal sobered by the 
 incident, and his manner showed it. 
 
 Mr. Thompson did not answer. He stood glowering at 
 a number of the hands who had gathered round. 
 
 "Don't none o' you gennelmen touch that bye," he said 
 67
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 with a slow snarl, and he pointed to the heap on the deck. 
 
 They took Mr. Thompson's advice. Most people did 
 aboard the Margaret Carey. Even the Old Man respected 
 it in the -last resort, that was if he was sober enough to 
 respect anything. But with him it was the seamanship 
 rather than the personal force of his chief officer that turned 
 the scale. It was the man himself to whom less exalted 
 people bowed the knee. 
 
 It took the boy the best part of two days to recover the 
 use of his wits. And even then he was not quite as he had 
 been. Something seemed to have happened to him; a very 
 subtle, almost imperceptible change had taken place. He 
 had touched bottom. In a dim way he seemed to realize 
 that he had been made free of some high and awful mystery. 
 
 The knowledge was reflected in the thin brown face, 
 haunted now with all manner of unimaginable things. But 
 the feeling of defeat and hopelessness had passed; a new 
 Henry Harper had come out of the sea; never again was he 
 quite so feckless after that experience. 
 
 For one thing, he was no longer afraid to go aloft. Dur- 
 ing the warm calm delightful days in the Indian Ocean 
 when things went well with the ship, and there happened 
 , to be nothing doing in the cabin, Sailor began to make him- 
 'self familiar with the yards. All through the good weather 
 ihe practiced climbing assiduously, so that one day the 
 Old Man remarked upon it to the mate, demanding of that 
 gentleman, "What has happened to Sailor? He goes aloft 
 like a monkey and sleeps in the cross-trees." 
 
 Mr. Thompson made no reply, but a look came into his 
 grim face which might be said to express approval. 
 
 The Old Man and the mate were the first to recognize 
 
 that a change had taken place in Sailor, but the knowledge 
 
 was not confined exclusively to them. It was soon shared 
 
 by others. One evening, as Sailor sat sunning himself with 
 
 68
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 the ship's cat on his knee, gazing with intensity now at the 
 sky, now at the sea, one of the hands, a rough nigger named 
 Brutus, threw a boot at him in order to amuse the company. 
 There was a roar of laughter when it was seen that the 
 aim was so true that the boy had been hit in the face. 
 
 Sailor laid the cat on the deck, got up quietly, and with 
 the blood running down his cheek came over to Brutus. 
 
 "Was that you, you ?" To the astonishment of all 
 
 he addressed in terms of the sea the biggest bully aboard 
 the ship. 
 
 "Yep," said the nigger, showing his fine teeth in a grin 
 at the others. 
 
 "There, then, you ugly swine," said Sailor. 
 
 In an instant he had whipped out one of the cabin table 
 knives, which he had hidden against the next attack, and 
 struck at the nigger with all his strength. If the point of 
 the knife had not been blunt the nigger would never have 
 thrown another boot at anybody. 
 
 There was a fine to-do. The nigger, a thorough coward, 
 began to howl and declared he was done. The second mate 
 was fetched, and he reported the matter at once to the 
 Old Man. 
 
 In a great fury the Old Man came in person to investi- 
 gate. But he very soon had the rights of the matter ; the ,' 
 boy's cheek was bleeding freely, and the nigger was more | 
 frightened than hurt. 
 
 "Get below you," said the Old Man savagely to the 
 nigger. "I'll have you in irons. I'll larn you to throw 
 boots." 
 
 That was all the satisfaction the nigger got out of the 
 affair, but from then boots were not thrown lightheartedly 
 at Sailor. 
 
 69
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 XVII 
 
 AFTER many days of ocean tramping with an occa- 
 sional discharge of cargo at an out of the way 
 port, the ship put in at Frisco. Here, after a 
 clean up, a new cargo was taken aboard, also a new crew. 
 This was a pretty scratch lot; the usual complement of 
 Yankees, Dutchmen, dagoes, and an occasional Britisher. 
 
 For a long and trying fifteen months, Sailor continued 
 on the seas, about all the oceans of the world. At the end of 
 that time he was quite a different boy from the one who had 
 left his native city of Blackhampton. Dagoes and niggers 
 no longer did as they liked with him. He still had a strong 
 dislike, it was true, to going aloft in a gale, but he invariably 
 did as he was told to the best of his ability; he no longer 
 skulked or showed the white feather in the presence of his 
 mates. Nevertheless, he was always miserably unhappy. 
 There was something in his nature that could not accept the 
 hateful discomforts of a life before the mast, although from 
 the day of his birth he had never known what it was to lie 
 soft. He was in hell all the time. Moreover, he knew it 
 and felt it to the inmost fiber of his being; the soul of 
 Henry Harper was no longer derelict. 
 
 The sense of the miracle which had happened off the 
 Island of San Pedro abided with him through gale and 
 typhoon, through sunshine and darkness, through winter 
 and summer. It didn't matter what the sea was doing, or 
 the wind was saying, or the Old Man was threatening, a 
 miracle had happened to Henry Harper. He had touched 
 bed rock. He had seen things and he had learned things; 
 man and nature, all the terrible and mysterious forces 
 around him could do their worst, but he no longer feared 
 them in the old craven way. Sailor had suffered a SCSL 
 70
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 change. The things in earth and heaven he had looked upon 
 none could share with him, not even Mr. Thompson, that 
 strange and sinister man of the sea, to whom he owed what 
 was called "his life"; nay, not even the Old Man himself 
 who had lived six weeks on shellfish on the Island of San 
 Pedro. 
 
 When the Margaret Carey had been to Australia and 
 round the larger half of the world, she put in at Frisco 
 again. Here she took another cargo and signed on fresh 
 hands for a voyage round the Pacific Coast. Among the 
 latter was a man called Klondyke. At least, that was the 
 name he went by aboard the Margaret Carey, and was 
 never called by any other. At first this individual puzzled 
 Henry Harper considerably. He shared a berth with him 
 in the half-deck, and the boy now a grown man rising six- 
 teen armed with a curiosity that was perfectly insatiable, 
 and a faculty of taking lively and particular notice, found a 
 great deal to interest him in this new chum. 
 
 He was about twenty- four and a^ Britisher, although 
 Sailor in common with most of his shipmates thought af 
 first that he was a Yankee. For one thing, he was a new 
 type aboard the Margaret Carey. Very obviously he knew 
 little of the sea, but that didn't seem to trouble him. From 
 the moment he set foot aboard, he showed that he could take 
 good care of himself. It was not obtrusive but quietly 
 efficient care that he took of himself, yet it seemed to bear 
 upon the attitude of all with whom he had to do. 
 
 Klondyke knew nothing about a windjammer, but soon 
 started in to learn. And it didn't seem to matter what 
 ticklish or unpleasant jobs he was put to jobs for which 
 Sailor could never overcome a great dislike he had always 
 a remarkable air of being in this hard and perilous business 
 merely for the good of his health. 
 
 Klondyke said he had never been aloft before in his life, 
 71
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 and the first time he went up it was blowing hard from the 
 northeast, yet his chief concern before he started was to lay 
 a bet of five dollars with anybody in the starboard watch 
 that he didn't fall out of the rigging. But there were no 
 takers, for there was not a man aboard who would believe 
 that this was the first time he had gone up on a yard. 
 
 It was not many weeks before Klondyke was the most 
 efficient ordinary seaman aboard the Margaret Carey. And 
 by that time he had become a power among the after gang. 
 As one of the Yankees, who was about as tough as they 
 made them but with just a streak of the right color in him, 
 expressed it, "Klondyke was a white man from way back." 
 
 The fact was, Klondyke was a white man all through, the 
 only one aboard the ship. It was not a rarefied or aggres- 
 sively shining sort of whiteness. His language on occasion 
 could be quite as salt as that of anybody else, even more so, 
 perhaps, as he had a greater range of tongues, both living 
 and dead, from which to choose. He was very partial to 
 his meals, and growled terribly if the grub went short as if 
 often did; he also set no store by dagoes and "sich," for he 
 was very far from believing that all men were equal. They 
 were, no doubt, in the sight of God, but Klondyke main- 
 tained that the English were first, Yankees and Dutchmen 
 divided second place, and the rest of sea-going humanity 
 were not on the chart at all. He was always extremely 
 clear about this. 
 
 From the first day of Klondykc's coming aboard, Sailor, 
 who was very sharp in some things, became mightily inter- 
 ested in the new hand in the wonderful fur cap with flaps 
 for the nose and ears, who went about the ship as if he 
 owned it; while after a time the new hand returned the 
 compliment by taking a friendly interest in Sailor. But 
 that was not at first. Klondyke, for all his go-as-you-please 
 air, was not the kind of man who entered easily upon per- 
 72
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 sonal relations. Moreover, there was something about him 
 which puzzled Henry Harper. He spoke a kind of lingo 
 the boy had never heard before. It was that as much as 
 anything which had made Sailor think he was a Yank. He 
 had not been used to that sort of talk at Blackhampton, nor 
 was it the kind in vogue on the Margaret Carey. If not 
 exactly la-di-da, had it been in the mouth of some people it 
 would have been considered a trifle thick. 
 
 Sailor's intimacy with Klondyke, which was to have an 
 important bearing upon his life, began in quite a casual way. 
 
 One afternoon, with the sea like glass, and not a puff of 
 wind in the sails, they sat together on the deck picking 
 oakum to keep them from idleness, when Klondyke suddenly 
 remarked: "Sailor, don't think me inquisitive, but I'm 
 wondering what brought you to sea." 
 
 "Inquisitive" was a word Sailor had not heard before, 
 and he could only guess at its meaning. But he thought 
 Klondyke so little inquisitive that he said at once quite 
 simply and frankly, "Dunno." He then added by way of 
 an afterthought, although Klondyke was a new chum and 
 rated the same as himself, "Mister." 
 
 "No, I expect not," said Klondyke, "but I've been won- 
 dering a bit lately" there was something very pleasant in 
 Klondyke's tone "how you come to be aboard this hell 
 ship. One would have thought you'd have done better 
 ashore." 
 
 Sailor was not able to offer an opinion upon that. 
 
 "In some kind of a store or an office?" 
 
 "Can't read, can't write." 
 
 "No?" Klondyke's eyebrows went up for a fraction of 
 an instant, then they came down as if a bit ashamed of them- 
 selves for having gone up at all. "But it's quite easy to 
 learn, you know." 
 
 Sailor gasped in astonishment. He had always been led 
 73
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 to believe that to learn to read and write was a task of super- 
 human difficulty. Some of his friends at Blackhampton had 
 attended a night school now and again, but none of them 
 had been able to make much of the racket of reading and 
 writing, except one, Nick Price, who had a gift that way 
 and was good for nothing else. Besides, as soon as he really 
 took to the game a change came over him. Finally, he left 
 the town. 
 
 "I'd never be able to read an' write," said Sailor. 
 
 ""Why not?" said Klondyke. "Why not, like anybody 
 -else ... if you stuck it? Of course, you'd have to stick it, 
 you know. It mightn't come very kind at first." 
 
 This idea was so entirely new that Sailor rose with quite 
 a feeling of excitement from the upturned bucket on which 
 he sat. 
 
 "Honest, mister," he said, gazing wistfully into the face 
 of Klondyke, "do you fink I could?" 
 
 "Sure," said Klondyke. "Sure as God made little 
 apples." 
 
 Sailor decided that he would think it over. It was a very 
 important step to take. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 KLONDYKE'S library consisted of two volumes: the 
 Bible and "Don Quixote." Sailor knew a bit 
 about the former work. The Reverend Rogers 
 had read it aloud on a famous occasion when Henry Harper 
 had had the luck to be invited to a real blowout of tea 
 and buns at the Brookfield Street Mission. That was a 
 priceless memory, and Henry Harper always thought that 
 to hear the Reverend Rogers read the Bible was a treat. 
 Klondyke, who was not at all like the Reverend Rogers 
 74
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 in word or deed, said it was "a damned good book," and 
 would sometimes read in it when he was at a bit of a loose 
 end. 
 
 It was by means of this volume that Sailor learned his 
 
 alphabet. Presently he got to spelling words of two and 
 
 j three letters, then he got as far as remembering them, and 
 
 ' then came the proud day when he could write his name 
 
 with a stump of pencil on a stray piece of the Brooklyn 
 
 Eagle, in which Klondyke had packed his tooth brush, the 
 
 only one aboard the Margaret Carey. 
 
 "What is your name, old friend ?" Klondyke asked. 
 
 "Enry Arper." 
 
 "H-e-n with a Hen, ry Heniy. H-a-r with a Har, 
 p-e-r Harper." 
 
 "There ain't no aitch in Arper," said Sailor. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 Enry Arper was Sailor's own private name, which he had 
 been given at his birth, which he had used all his life. He 
 had always felt that as it was the only thing he owned, it 
 was his to do with as he liked. Therefore he was deter- 
 mined to spell it according to his fancy. He wouldn't admit 
 that there could possibly be an aitch in Arper; and for some 
 little time his faith in Klondyke's competence was a bit 
 shaken, for his mentor was at pains to make out that there 
 could be and was. 
 
 Henry Harper stuck to his ground, however. 
 
 "It's me own name," he said, "an' I oughter know." 
 
 Klondyke was amused. He seemed rather to admire 
 Sailor's attitude. No doubt he felt that no Englishman is 
 worth his salt who doesn't spell his name just as the fancy 
 takes him. 
 
 Klondyke's own name was Jack Pridmore, and it was set 
 out with other particulars on the flyleaf of his Bible. In a 
 large and rather crude copperplate was inscribed: 
 6 75
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Jack Pridmore is my name, 
 
 England is my nation, 
 Good old Eton College 
 
 Gave me a lib'ral education. 
 Stet domus et 
 Floreat Etona. 
 
 The arms of Eton College with the motto "Floreat Etona" 
 were inscribed on the opposite page, also in tattoo on the left 
 arm of the owner. In Sailor's opinion, Eton College did 
 flourish undoubtedly in the person of Jack Pridmore. He 
 was a white man all through, and long before Sailor could 
 make out that inscription on the flyleaf of Klondyke's Bible, 
 he was convinced that such was the case. 
 
 In Sailor's opinion, he was a good one to follow any- 
 where. Everything in Klondyke seemed in just the right 
 proportion and there was nothing in excess. He was new to 
 the sea, but he was not in the least green or raw in anything. 
 You would have to stay up all night if you meant to get 
 ahead of him. So much had he knocked about the world 
 that he knew men and cities like the back of his hand, and 
 he had the art of shaking down at once in any company. 
 
 All the same, in Sailor's opinion, he had odd ideas. For 
 one thing, he set his face against the habit of carrying a knife 
 in your shirt in case the dagoes got above themselves. 
 
 "It's not quite white, you know, old friend," said Klon- 
 dyke. 
 
 "Dagoes ain't white," said Sailor. 
 
 "No; and that's why we've got to show 'em how white 
 we are if we are going to keep top dog." 
 
 This reasoning was too deep for Sailor. 
 
 "Don't see it meself. Them dagoes is bigger'n me. If 
 I could lick 'em, I'd lick 'em till they hollered when they 
 started in to fool around. But they are real yaller; none on 
 'em will face a bit o' sheffle." 
 76
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "No," said Klondyke, "and they'll not face a straight 
 left with a punch in it either." 
 
 Klondyke then made a modest suggestion that Sailor 
 should acquire this part of a white man's equipment. He 
 was firmly convinced that with the rudiments of reading and 
 writing and a straight left with a punch in it, you could go 
 all over the world. 
 
 At first Sailor took by no means as kindly to the punch- 
 ing as he did to the other branches of knowledge. He 
 wanted a bit of persuading to face Klondyke in "a little 
 friendly scrapping practice" in the lee of the chart house 
 when no one was by. Klondyke was as hard as a nail; his 
 left was like a horse's kick; and when he stood in his birth- 
 day suit, which he did once a day to receive the bucket of 
 water he got Sailor to dash over him another of his odd 
 ideas he looked as fine a picture of make and muscle as you 
 could wish to see. Sailor thought "the little friendly scrap- 
 ping practice" was a very one-sided arrangement. His nose 
 seemed to bleed very easily, his eyes began to swell so that 
 he could hardly see out of them, and his lips and ears thick- 
 ened with barely any provocation at all, whereas he never 
 seemed to get within a yard of Klondyke's physiognomy un- 
 less that warrior put down his hands and allowed him to hit 
 it. 
 
 By this time, however, Klondyke had laid such a hold on 
 Henry Harper that he didn't like to turn it up. He'd 
 never make a Slavin or a Corbett it simply wasn't in him 
 but all that was "white" in Sailor mustered at this chap's 
 call. The fact was, he had begun to worship Klondyke, and 
 when with the "sand" of a true hero he was able to get 
 over an intense dislike of being knocked about, he began to 
 feel a sort of pride in the process. If he had to take gruel 
 from anybody, it had better be from him. Besides, Sailor 
 was such a queer fish that there seemed something in his 
 77
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 nature which almost craved for a licking from the finest 
 chap v he had ever known. His affection for this "whitest" 
 of men seemed to grow with the punishment he took from 
 him. 
 
 One night, after an easy watch, as they lay talking and 
 smoking in their bunks in the dark, Klondyke remarked: 
 
 "Sailor, there's a lot o' guts in you." 
 
 Henry Harper, who was very far off that particular dis- 
 covery, didn't know what Klondyke was getting at. 
 
 "You've taken quite a lot of gruel this week. And you've 
 stood up to it well. Mind, I don't think you'll ever make 
 a bruiser, not if you practice until the cows come home. It 
 simply isn't there, old friend. It's almost like hitting a 
 woman, hitting you. It is not your line of country, and it 
 gets me what you are doing aboard this blue-nose outfit. 
 How do you stick it? It must be hell all the time." 
 
 Henry Harper made no reply. He was rather out of his 
 depth just now, but he guessed that most of this was true. 
 
 "I don't mind taking chances, but it's all the other way 
 with you. Every time you go aloft, you turn white as chalk, 
 and that shows what grit you've got. But your mother 
 ought never to have let you come to sea, my boy." 
 
 "Never had no mother," said Sailor. 
 
 "No" Klondyke felt he ought to have known that. 
 "Well, it would have saved mine a deal of disappointment," 
 he said cheerfully, "if she had never had such a son. I'm 
 her great sorrow. But if you had had a mother it would 
 have been another story. You'd have been a regular mother's 
 boy." 
 
 Sailor wasn't sure.
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 XIX 
 
 KLONDYKE was ten months an ordinary seamari 
 aboard the Margaret Carey. In that time the old 
 tub, which could not have been so crazy as she 
 seemed to the experts of the forecastle, went around the 
 Pacific as far as Brisbane, thence to Durban, thence again 
 to California. Meanwhile, friendship ripened. It was a 
 great thing for Sailor to have the countenance of such a man 
 as Klondyke. He knew so much more about the world than 
 Sailor did, also he was a real friend and protector; and, 
 when they went ashore together in strange places, as they 
 often did, he had a wonderful knack of making himself 
 respected. 
 
 It was not that Klondyke wore frills. In most of the 
 places in which they found themselves a knife in the ribs 
 would have done his business out of hand had that been the 
 case. It was simply that he knew his way and could talk 
 to every man in his own language, and every woman, too, if 
 it came to that. Whether it was a Frisco hash-slinger or a 
 refined bar-lady along the seaboard made no difference to 
 Klondyke. It was true that he always looked as if he had 
 jbought the earth at five per cent, discount for cash and car- 
 ried the title deeds in his pocket, but he had such a way 
 with him that from Vancouver to Sydney and back again 
 nobody seemed to think the worse of him for it. 
 
 However, the day came all too soon when a tragic blow 
 fell on Sailor. The ship put in at Honolulu one fine morn- 
 ing, and as soon as Klondyke went ashore he picked up a 
 substitute for himself on the waterfront, whom the Old 
 Man was willing to accept for the rest of his term. Klon- 
 dyke then broke the news to Sailor that he had just taken 
 a fancy to walk across Asia, 
 
 79
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 It was a heavy blow. Sailor was very near tears, although 
 he was growing in manhood every week. 
 
 "It's no use asking you to come with me," said Klondyke. 
 "We shouldn't have enough brass to go round. Besides, 
 now the wanderlust is on me there is no saying where I'll 
 get to. I'm very likely to be sawed up for firewood in the 
 middle of Tibet." 
 
 Sailor knew that Klondyke wanted to make the journey 
 alone. Partly to soften the blow and partly as an impulse 
 of friendship, he gave the boy his Bible and also his wonder- 
 ful fur cap with flaps for the nose and ears. 
 
 "Stick to the reading and writing, old friend," were the 
 final words of this immortal. "That's your line of country. 
 It'll pay you in the end. You'll get no good out of the sea. 
 If you are wise, whenever you touch the port of London, 
 you'll give a miss to this old tub. A life on the ocean wave 
 is never going to be the least use to you." 
 
 Sailor knew that Klondyke was right. But among the 
 many things he lacked was all power of initiative. As soon 
 as he had lost his prop and stay, he was once more a dere- 
 lict. For him life before the mast must always be a hell, 
 but he had no power of acting for himself. After Klondyke 
 left the ship there didn't seem anything else to do beyond a 
 mere keeping of body and soul together aboard the Mar- 
 garet Carey. There was nothing else he could do if it came 
 to that. He had only learned to sell papers on land, and he 
 had given the best years of his life to the sea. Besides, every 
 voyage he became a better sailor and was paid a bit more; 
 he even had visions of one day being rated able seaman. 
 Moreover, being saving and careful, his slender store of 
 dollars grew. But his heart was never really in his work, 
 never in the making of money nor in the sailing of the ship. 
 
 He was a square peg in a round hole. He didn't know 
 enough about himself or the world or the life he was trying 
 80
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 to live to realize fully that this was the case. And for all 
 his weakness of will and complete lack of training, which 
 made his life a burden to him, he had a curious sort of 
 tenacity that enabled him to keep on keeping on long after 
 natures with more balance would have turned the thing up. 
 
 All the years he was at sea, he never quite overcame the 
 sense of fear the sea aroused in him; he seldom went aloft, 
 even in a dead calm, without changing color, and he never 
 dared look down; he must have lost his hold in many a 
 thrashing northeaster and been broken on the deck like an 
 egg but for an increasing desire to live that was simple tor- 
 ment. There was a kind of demon in his soul which made 
 him fight for a thing that mocked it. 
 
 He had no other friend after Klondyke went. No other 
 was possible; besides, he had a fierce distrust of half his 
 shipmates; he even lost his early reverence for Mr. Thomp- 
 son, in spite of the fact that he owed him his life, long 
 before the mate left the ship at Liverpool nine months after 
 the departure of Klondyke. Above all, the Old Man in 
 liquor always inspired his terror, a treat to be counted on 
 once a month at least. The years of his seafaring were bit- 
 ter, yet never once did he change ship. He often thought 
 about it, but unluckily for Henry Harper thought was not 
 action; he "never quite matched up," as Klondyke used to 
 express it. He had a considerable power of reflection; he 
 was a creature of intuitions, with a faculty of observation 
 almost marvelous in an untrained mind, but he never seemed 
 able to act for himself. 
 
 Another grave error was that he didn't take Klondyke's 
 advice and stick to reading and writing. No doubt he ought 
 to have done it; but it was such a tough job that he could 
 hardly take it on by himself. The drudgery made him mis- 
 erable; it brought too vividly to his mind the true friend 
 who had gone out of his life. For the rest of his time 
 81
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 aboard the Margaret Carey he never got over the loss of 
 Klondyke. The presence and support of that immortal had 
 meant another world for him. For many months he could 
 hardly bear the sight of the Bible his friend had given him, 
 but cherished it as he had once cherished an apple that had 
 also been given him by one who had crossed his orbit in 
 the night of time and had spoken to him in passing. 
 
 It is not unlikely that Henry Harper would have sailed 
 the seas aboard the Margaret Carey until that miraculous 
 ship went to pieces in mid-ocean or turned turtle round the 
 Horn; it is not unlikely that he would have gone down to 
 his grave without a suspicion that any other kingdom awaited 
 him, had it not been that in the last resort the decision was 
 taken out of his hands. 
 
 One day, when he had been rather more than six years at 
 sea, the Margaret Carey was within three days of London, 
 whither she was bound with a cargo of wheat, when the Old 
 Man informed him briefly and curtly that she was making 
 her last voyage and that she was going to be broken up. 
 The news was such a blow that at first Sailor could not 
 realize what it meant. He had come to feel that no sort of 
 existence would be possible apart from the Margaret Carey. 
 He had lived six crowded and terrible years of worse than 
 discomfort, but he could envisage no future apart from that / 
 leaking, crazy, foul old tub. 
 
 All too soon the day came, a misty morning of October, 
 when he stepped ashore. A slender bundle was under one 
 arm, Klondyke's fur cap on his head, a weird outfit on his 
 lathlike body, an assortment of clothes as never was on sea 
 or land before ; and he had a store of coins of various realms, 
 no less than eighty-five pieces of all sizes and values, from 
 an English farthing to a Mexican five dollars, very care- 
 fully disposed about his person. 
 
 82
 
 BOOK II 
 
 TRAVAIL 
 
 THE Sailor, shipless and alone, was about to enter the 
 most amazing city in the world. 
 He was a handsome boy, lean, eager eyed, and 
 very straight in the body in spite of his gear, which consisted 
 mainly of leggings, a tattered jersey, and a wonderful fur 
 cap with flaps for the nose and ears. He was fairly tall, 
 but being as thin as a rail looked much taller than he was. 
 His face and hands were the color of mahogany, his vivid 
 eyes were set with long intercourse with the sea, and in them 
 was a look that was very hard to forget. 
 
 He came ashore about ten o'clock in the morning of Tues- 
 day, October the fifth. For a while he stood on the edge 
 of the quay with his bundle under his arm, wondering what 
 he should do. It had not occurred to him to ask advice 
 when he left the ship. Even the bosun had not said, "So 
 long" to him ; in spite of six years' service he was a poor sea- 
 man with no real heart for his job. He had been a cheap 
 and inefficient hand ; aboard a better ship, in the Old Man's 
 opinion, he would have been dear at any price. 
 
 His relations with the rest of the crew had never been 
 intimate. Most considered him "soft" or "a bit touched"; 
 from the Old Man to the last joined ship's boy, he was "only 
 Sailor." He never thought of asking what he ought to do; 
 and had he done so his curious intuition told him the an- 
 83
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 swer he would have been likely to receive. They would 
 have told him to go and drown himself. 
 
 He had not been ashore a quarter of an hour when he 
 began to feel that it was the best thing he could do. But 
 the queer faculty he had told him at once that it was a 
 thing he would never be able to do now. If he had had any 
 luck it would have been done years ago. 
 
 Therefore, instead of jumping over the side of the quay, 
 he suddenly walked through the dock gates into the streets 
 of Wapping. All the morning he drifted aimlessly up one 
 street and down another, his bundle under his arm, but 
 neither plan nor purpose in his mind. At last, he began to 
 feel very hungry, and then he found himself up against 
 the problem of getting something to eat. 
 
 Opposite where he stood in the narrow, busy, intermin- 
 able street was an imposing public house, painted a magnifi- 
 cent yellow. He knew that bread and cheese and a tankard 
 of beer, which he so greatly desired, were there for the ask- 
 ing. But the asking! that was the rub. He always felt 
 tongue-tied in a public house, and his experience of them in 
 his brief shore-goings in Frisco, Sydney, Liverpool, or Shang- 
 hai had never been happy, and had sometimes ended in dis- 
 aster. But now under the spur of need, he crossed the street 
 and, fixing his will, found his way through the swing doors 
 into the gilded interior of the Admiral Nelson. 
 
 Happily, the American bar was at that moment without 
 a customer. This was a great relief to the Sailor. But a 
 truly thrilling bar-lady, replete with earrings, a high bust, 
 and an elaborate false front, gave him an eye of cool dis- 
 dain as he entered with his bundle, which he laid upon a 
 marble-topped table as far from her as possible; and then, 
 after a long moment's pause, in order to screw his courage 
 to the sticking-point, he came over to the counter. 
 
 The sight of the bar-lady brought a surge of previous 
 84
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 shore-goings into the Sailor's mind. Quite automatically, 
 he doffed his fur cap as Klondyke would have done in these 
 heroic circumstances, and then all at once she forgot to be 
 magnificent. For one thing, in spite of his grotesque clothes 
 and his thin cheeks and his shock of chestnut hair, he was 
 a decidedly handsome boy. Also he was a genuinely polite 
 and modest one, and the bar-lady, Miss Burton by name, 
 who had the worldly wisdom that owns to thirty-nine and 
 the charm which goes with that period of life, was favor- 
 ably impressed. "What can I do for you?" Miss Burton in- 
 quired. It was clear that her one desire was to help a shy 
 youth over his embarrassment. 
 
 The voice of the fair, so charmingly civilized, at once 
 unlocked a door in the Sailor's memory. With a further 
 slow summoning of will-power which made it the more im- 
 pressive, he answered precisely as Klondyke had at the Bo- 
 dega in Frisco: "May I have some bread and cheese, please, 
 and half a pint of beer?" 
 
 "Certainly you may," she smiled. 
 
 The tone of deference had touched a chord in her. More- 
 over, he really was handsome, although attired as a very 
 ordinary, not to say a very common, seaman, and evidently 
 far more at home on the deck of a windjammer than in the 
 American bar of an up-to-date public-house. 
 
 "Fourpence, please." The bar-lady set before him a 
 pewter flagon of foaming fresh-drawn ale, also a liberal piece 
 of bread and cheese, beautifully white to one accustomed to 
 hard tack aboard the Margaret Carey. 
 
 In some confusion the Sailor produced a handful of sil- 
 ver coins from his amazing trousers, out of which he sol- 
 emnly chose a Spanish fourpenny. 
 
 "Haven't you got anything English?" she asked, burst- 
 ing suddenly into a laugh. 
 
 Not a little disconcerted, the Sailor began to struggle 
 85
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 with a second handful of coins which he took from another 
 pocket. Blushing to the tips of his ears, he finally tendered 
 half a crown. 
 
 "Two-and-two change." With an intent smile she 
 marked what he did with it. 
 
 Having stowed away the two-and-twopence, he was about 
 to carry his plate of bread and cheese and tankard of beer 
 to the marble-topped table where he had left his bundle, 
 \vhen the lady said, in a royal tone of gracious command, 
 "Why not sit and eat it here?" 
 
 The Sailor would have been the last young man in the 
 world to think of disobeying. He felt a little thrill creep 
 down his spine as he climbed up on the high stool exactly 
 opposite her. It was the sort of thrill he had had when 
 under the aegis of Klondyke he had carried out this delicate 
 social maneuver for the benefit of the bar-ladies of Frisco, 
 Liverpool, and Shanghai. 
 
 At first, he was too shy to eat. 
 
 "Go on. Don't mind me," she encouraged him. 
 
 An intensive politeness caused him to cut his bread care- 
 fully with his knife. And then before he put it into his 
 mouth he said, in an abrupt, but well modulated Klondyke 
 manner, " 'Scuse me, lady, won't yer 'ave a bite yerself ?" 
 
 The deferential tone belonged to the mentor of his youth, 
 yet the speech itself seemed to owe little to Eton College. 
 
 "No, thank you," said Miss Burton. "I'm not hungry." 
 And then, seeing his look of embarrassment, "Now get on 
 tvilh it. Don't mind me." 
 
 This was a woman of the world. She was a ripe student 
 of human nature, at least of the trousers-wearing section 
 of human nature. Not for many a day had she been so taken 
 by a specimen of an always remarkable genus as by this boy 
 with the deep eyes, whose clothes and speech and behavior 
 were like nothing on earth. 
 
 86
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 A true amateur of the male sex, she watched this quaint 
 specimen eating bread and cheese. Presently he raised his 
 tankard aloft, said, "Good 'ealth, lady," in a shy manner, 
 and drank half of it at a gulp. 
 
 "When are you going to sea again?" asked Miss Burton, 
 conversationally. 
 
 "Never going to sea no more," said the young man, with 
 a strange look in his eyes. 
 
 "What never?" She seemed surprised. 
 
 "Never no more. I'll never sail agen afore the mast. 
 I'd sooner starve. It's it's " 
 
 "It's what?" 
 
 "It's hell, lady." 
 
 Miss Burton was taken aback by the tone of conviction. 
 After all, this grotesque young sea monster was no true 
 amphibian. 
 
 "Well, what are you going to do ashore ?" she asked after 
 a pause, while she gazed at him in astonishment. 
 
 "Dunno." 
 
 "No plans?" 
 
 The boy shook his head. 
 
 "Like another tankard of mild?" 
 
 "Yes, please, lady." 
 
 The impact of the bar-lady's easy and familiar style had 
 caused a rather sharp relapse from the Klondyke standard of 
 refinement, but not for a moment did the Sailor forget the 
 dignity of her estate. In spite of the hybrid words he used, 
 the note of subtle deference was never out of his voice; 
 and Miss Burton, unconsciously intrigued by it, became 
 even more interested in this strange product of the high 
 seas. 
 
 "How long have you been afloat?" She handed him a 
 second tankard of mild. 
 
 "Near six year." 
 
 87
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Six years. Gracious goodness! And you didn't like it?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 For some reason, the look in his eyes caused her to shiver 
 a little. 
 
 "Why did you stick it, then?" 
 
 "Dunno." 
 
 A pause followed. Then he lifted his tankard again, 
 said, " 'Ere's lookin', lady," and drank it right off. 
 
 "Well, you are a rum one, you are, and no mistake," 
 murmured Miss Burton, not to the Sailor, but to the beer 
 engine at her side. 
 
 II 
 
 AFTER the young man from the sea had drunk his 
 second tankard of mild, he sat on the high stool silent 
 and embarrassed. He was hoping that the gorgeous 
 creature opposite would continue the conversation, but he 
 didn't seem to know how to encourage her. However, as 
 soon as a powerful feminine intelligence had told her the 
 state of the case, she said abruptly, "Well, and what are 
 you going to do for a living now you've retired from the 
 sea?" 
 
 He gave his head a wistful shake. 
 
 The gesture, rather pathetic in its hopelessness, touched 
 Miss Burton. 
 
 "Well, you can't live on air, you know." 
 
 "No, lady." 
 
 "Well, what are you going to do?" 
 
 Another shake of the head was the only answer, but as 
 he met her sympathetic eyes, an inspiration came to him. 
 
 "Lady," he said humbly, "you don't happen to know of 
 a shack?" 
 
 "Know of a what!" The touch of acerbity froze him at 
 88
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 once. "Shack!" Coming to his assistance, "What on earth's 
 that?" 
 
 "Lodgings, clean and decent, for a single man." The 
 phrase was Klondyke's, and it came to him quite oddly at 
 that moment in all its native purity. His mentor had a 
 private collection of such phrases which he used to roll out 
 for his own amusement when he went ashore. This was one. 
 Henry Harper could see him now, pointing to a dingy card 
 in a dingy window in a dingy street, in some miserable sea- 
 board suburb, and he could hear him saying, "There you 
 are, Sailor, lodgings, clean and decent, for a single man." 
 
 Miss Burton pondered. And then the slow smile came 
 again. 
 
 "Well, if you really want lodgings clean and decent for 
 a single man I suppose I must try and help you," she said 
 graciously. "But I'm afraid I shan't be much use. They 
 are not quite in my line." 
 
 "No, lady." 
 
 "Still, Fore Street is full of them. That's the second 
 turn to the left and then the first on the right, and then the 
 first on the right again." 
 
 "Yes, lady." 
 
 "You might try No. 5 or No. 7 or No. 9 but Fore 
 Street's full of them." 
 
 Miss Burton was really trying to be helpful, and the 
 young seaman was very grateful to her, but Klondyke would 
 have known at once that "she was talking out of the back 
 of her neck." 
 
 Armed with this valuable information, the young man 
 got off his high stool at last, raised his fur cap once more, 
 with a little of the unconscious grace of its original owner, 
 said, "So long, lady," collected his bundle and went out by 
 the side door. And in the meantime, the bar-lady, who had 
 marked every detail of his going, hardly knew whether to 
 89
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 laugh or to shed tears. This was the queerest being she had 
 ever seen in her life. 
 
 The Sailor managed to find Fore Street after taking sev- 
 eral wrong turnings and asking his way three times. And 
 then his difficulties really began. 
 
 Fore Street was very narrow, very long, very gloomy, 
 very dirty. In each of these qualities it seemed well able to 
 compare with any street he had seen in Frisco, in Sydney, 
 in Liverpool, or even in Port Said. But it didn't discour- 
 age him. After all he had never been used to anything 
 else. 
 
 The first house in Fore Street had a grimy card in a 
 grimier window, exactly in the manner to rejoice the heart 
 of Klondyke. Sailor, who had forgotten almost every syl- 
 lable of "book-learning" he ever possessed and at no time 
 had he been the possessor of many leaped at once to the 
 conclusion that the legend on the card was, "Lodgings, clean 
 and decent, for a single man." Unfortunately it was, 
 "Dressmaking done here." 
 
 A very modest knock was answered by a large female of 
 truculent aspect, to whom he took off his cap, while she stood 
 looking at him with surprise, wonder and inveterate distrust 
 of mankind in general and of him in particular spreading 
 over her like a pall. 
 
 "Lodgings, clean and decent, for a single man!" 
 
 The door of No. I, Fore Street, was slammed violently 
 in the face of the applicant. 
 
 The Sailor nearly shed tears. He was absurdly sensitive 
 in dealing with the other sex and prone to be affected by its 
 hazards and vicissitudes. However, Auntie of the long ago 
 surged into his mind, and the recollection seemed to soften 
 the rebuff. All, even of that sex, were not bar-ladies, sym- 
 pathetic, smiling, and magnificent. Therefore he took cour- 
 age to knock at the door of the next house which also had 
 90
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 a card in the window. But, unfortunately, that again was 
 not to proclaim lodgings, clean and decent, for a single 
 man, but merely, "A horse and cart for hire." 
 
 Here the blow, again from the quarter which knows how 
 to deal them, was equally decisive. A creature, blowsy and 
 unkempt, told him, after a single glance at his fur cap and 
 his bundle and his deep-sea-going gear, "that if he didn't 
 take hisself off and look sharp about it she'd set the pleece 
 on him." 
 
 At this second rebuff the Sailor stood at the edge of the 
 curb for some little time, trying to pluck up spirit to grapple 
 with the problem of the next card-bearing domicile, which 
 happened to be the third house in the street. He felt he had 
 begun to lose his bearings a bit. It had come upon him all 
 at once with great force that he was a stranger in a strange 
 land whose language he didn't know. 
 
 He had just made up his mind to tackle the next card in 
 the window, let the consequences be what they might, when 
 he felt his sleeve plucked by a small urchin of nine with a 
 preternaturally sharp and racial countenance. 
 
 This promising product of the world's greatest race, one 
 Moses Gerothwohl by name, had had an eye fixed on the 
 fur cap ever since he had heard its owner ask at the first 
 house in the street for lodgings, clean and decent, for a 
 single man. This was undoubtedly one of those foreign 
 sailors, perhaps a Rooshian a Rooshian was the very high- 
 est flight of which the imagination of Moses Gerothwohl 
 was at present capable who, even if they were apt to get 
 drunk, on queer fluids and sometimes went a bit free with 
 their knives, were yet very good-natured, and as a rule were 
 pretty well off for money. 
 
 "Did yer sye, mate, yer wanted a shakedown?" said Moses 
 Gerothwohl, plucking at the sleeve of the Sailor. 
 
 The Sailor looked down at the urchin and nodded. 
 7 91
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Come with me, then," said Moses, stoutly. "And I'll 
 take yer to my grandma's." 
 
 He led the Sailor through a perfect maze of by-streets, 
 and through a nest of foul courts and alleys, until at last he 
 came to the house of his grandmother, to whom he presented 
 the foreign seaman. 
 
 She was not very prepossessing to look at, nor was her 
 abode enticing, but she had a small room to offer which, if 
 not over clean and decidedly airless, contained a bed of 
 which he could have the sole use for the reasonable sum of 
 sixpence a night. 
 
 The young man accepted the terms at once and laid his 
 bundle on the bed. But the old woman did not accept him 
 with equal alacrity. There was a little formality to be 
 gone through before the transaction could be looked upon 
 as "firm." It was usual for the sixpence to be paid in ad- 
 vance. 
 
 Grandma was one-fifth tact, three-fifths determination, 
 one-fifth truculence, and the whole of her was will power of 
 a very concentrated kind. She was as tough as wire, and 
 in the course of several tense and vital minutes, during which 
 her wolf's eyes never left Henry Harper's face, that fact 
 came home to him. 
 
 It took nearly five minutes for the Sailor to realize that 
 Grandma was waiting for something, but as soon as he did, 
 the way in which he bowed to fate impressed her right down 
 to the depths of her soul. He took an immense handful of 
 silver out of his pocket, the hoarded savings of six years of 
 bitter toil, chose one modest English "tanner" after a 
 search among many values and nationalities, and handed it 
 over with a polite smile. 
 
 The old woman was a very hard nut of the true water- 
 side variety, but the sight of such affluence was almost too 
 much for her. Money was her ruling passion. She went 
 92
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 downstairs breathing hard, and with a deep conviction that 
 Rothschild himself was in occupation of her first floor front. 
 
 In the meantime, the Sailor had seated himself on the 
 bed at the side of his bundle, and had started to think things 
 out a bit. This was a long and tough job. Hours passed. 
 The small, stuffy, evil-smelling bedroom grew as black as 
 pitch; a heavy October darkness had descended upon the 
 strange land of Wapping, but the Sailor was still thinking 
 very hard; also he was wondering what he should do next. 
 
 He. hadn't a friend on the wide earth. There was noth- 
 ing to which he could turn his hand. He could neither read 
 nor write. And in his heart he had a subtle fear of these 
 queer longshore people, although he had sense enough to 
 know that it was a Sailor's duty to trample that feeling 
 under foot. One who six long years had sailed before the 
 mast aboard the Margaret Carey had nothing to fear in hu- 
 man shape. 
 
 As Henry Harper sat on that patched counterpane in 
 the growing October darkness, unloosing that strange and 
 terrible thing, the mind of man, he was not merely lonely, 
 he was afraid. Afraid of what? He didn't know. But 
 as the darkness grew there came an uncanny feeling under 
 his jersey. It seemed to stick him in the pit of the stom- 
 ach like the icy blade of a knife. He had tasted fear in 
 many forms, but this kind of stealing coldness was some- 
 thing new and something different. 
 
 It grew darker and darker in the room. The sense of 
 loneliness was upon him now like a living presence. There 
 was not a soul in the world to whom he could turn, to 
 whom he might speak, unless it was the old woman down- 
 stairs. Yet lonely and rather terrified as he was, his odd 
 intuition told him it would be better to converse with no 
 one than to converse with her. 
 
 At last, shivering and supperless, although his pockets 
 93
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 were heavy with silver untold, he made up his mind to turn 
 in. It was a counsel of desperation. He was sick to nausea 
 with the business of thinking about nothing, a process which 
 began in nothing and ended in nothing; and at last with a 
 groan of misery, he pulled off his boots and leggings, but 
 without removing his clothes stretched himself on the bed. 
 
 If he could have had his wish he would have gone to 
 sleep, never to awake again. But he could only lie shiver- 
 ing in the darkness without any hope of rest. Presently a 
 clock struck two. And then he thought he heard a creak on 
 the stairs and shortly afterwards a stealthy footfall outside 
 his door. 
 
 He had never been anything but broad awake. But these 
 creeping noises of the night seemed to string up every sense 
 he had to a point that was uncanny. He held his breath in 
 order to listen to listen like a frightened animal in a 
 primeval forest that has begun to sense the approach of a 
 secret and deadly foe. 
 
 The door of the room came very softly open. It was at 
 the side of the bed, and he could not see it; but he felt an 
 almost imperceptible vibration in the airless stuffiness in 
 which he lay. Moreover, a breathing, catlike thing had en- 
 tered the room; a thing he could neither hear nor see. It 
 ; was a presence of which he was made aware by the incan- 
 descent forces of a living imagination. 
 
 It was too dark to see, there was not a sound to hear, but 
 he knew there was a breathing shape within reach of his 
 left hand. 
 
 Suddenly his hand shot out and closed upon it. 
 
 He caught something electric, quivering, alive. But what- 
 ever it was, a deadly silence contained it. There was not a 
 sound, except a gasp, as of one who has made a sudden plunge 
 into icy water. The Sailor lay inert, but now that live 
 thing was in his hand he was not afraid. 
 94
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 He expected a knife. Realizing that he must defend his 
 face or his ribs or whatever part might be open to attack, 
 he knew he must be ready for the blow. 
 
 But a queer thing happened. The attack was not made 
 by a knife. It was made by a human will. As he lay grap- 
 pling in the darkness with his visitor, slowly but surely he 
 felt himself enfolded by an unknown power. Such a force 
 was beyond his experience. His own will was in a vice; 
 there was a deadly struggle, yet neither moved. Not a sound 
 was uttered, but in the end the Sailor nearly screamed with 
 the overmastering tension which seemed to be pressing out 
 his life. And then he realized that his hand was no longer 
 holding the thing upon which it had closed. 
 
 The room was empty again. The darkness w r as too great 
 for his eyes to tell him, but every sense he had, and at this 
 moment he had more than five, seemed to say that whatever 
 his peril, it had now passed. 
 
 He sat up and listened tensely through the still open door. 
 He thought he could hear the creak of a foot on the stairs. 
 Then he began to search his pockets for a box of matches, 
 and suddenly remembered that he hadn't one. But the sense 
 of physical danger had given him a new power over his mind. 
 He was now terribly alert. 
 
 His instinct was to get out of that house at once. But a 
 very little reflection showed that such a course was not neces- 
 sary. It was only an old woman after all. 
 
 Ill 
 
 REINFORCED with the idea that an old woman 
 with wolf's eyes should have no terrors for a sailor, 
 Henry Harper decided to stay where he was, until 
 daylight at least. In the absence of matches and local 
 95
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 knowledge it would not be easy to find a way out of the 
 house in the middle of the night. Moreover if he drew the 
 chest of drawers from under the skylight, which was too 
 thickly plastered with generations of grime to dispense light 
 from the sky or anywhere else, and barricaded the door, he 
 could not be taken by surprise and need have fear of none. 
 
 He decided to do this. With arms as tough as steel, he 
 lifted up the chest of drawers bodily and dumped it with a 
 crash against the door. Let Grandma get through that if 
 she could. If she did, God help her. 
 
 Yes, God help her. The Sailor suddenly took from his 
 pocket a large, bone-hafted clasp knife. There came the 
 friendly click of the opening blade, he felt the well ground 
 edge lightly with the ball of his thumb. He would lie 
 quietly for Grandma in comfort and in simple faith. 
 
 What a fool to let her go! ... the trusty friend in his 
 hand was speaking to him. . . . Had you forgotten me? 
 I'd have done Grandma's business in a brace of shakes, you 
 know. 
 
 The Sailor, aware of that, felt rather sorry. 
 
 But in a little while there was another voice in the room. 
 In climbing back on the bed, one hand touched the fur cap 
 which lay at the foot of it. Instantly, a second voice spoke 
 through the darkness. 
 
 "No, Sailor, my boy." What a voice it was! "It ain't 
 quite white. Put your knife in your pocket, old friend. 
 And if Grandma calls again and you feel you must set your 
 mark on her, what's wrong with your ten commandments, 
 anyway ?" 
 
 The tones of Klondyke filled the darkness with their 
 music. 
 
 Sailor obeyed instinctively, in the way he had always 
 done. He put the knife back in his pocket with a gentle 
 sigh. 
 
 96
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 The dirty dawn of a wet October day stole on the young 
 man's eyes as he was attempting a doze on the patched coun- 
 terpane with his sea-going gear around him. The arrival 
 of an honest Wednesday morning, chill and dismal as it 
 was, dispelled with a magic that seemed ironical any linger- 
 ing trace he might have of his night fear of Grandma. Was 
 he not a sailor who six long years had sailed the seas? Had 
 he not seen, done and suffered things which held him for- 
 ever from any human thrall? 
 
 But Henry Harper knew better than to ask Grandma 
 what she had got for breakfast. 
 
 He chose instead to sling his hook. Gathering his truck 
 back into its bundle, and cramming the magic cap over his 
 eyes, he pulled the chest of drawers away from the bedroom 
 door. Then as soon as there was light enough to see the 
 way he crept down the creaking stairs, unlocked, unbolted 
 and unchained the door below, and slipped out into Wednes- 
 day morning. 
 
 Wednesday morning received him with a chill spatter of 
 rain. He stood a minute on the cobbles of the squalid yard 
 in front of Grandma's abode wondering where he was, 
 what he should do, which turn he should take. As a fact, 
 there was only one turn he could take, and that lay straight 
 ahead across the yard, through a short arched passageway 
 leading to a maze of courts and alleys which led heaven 
 knew where. 
 
 He proceeded to find out. Bundle under arm, fur cap 
 over eyes, a roll in his gait, the Sailor emerged at last upon 
 a main street, at present only half awake. But it contained 
 a thing of vast importance: a policeman. 
 
 The Law in its majesty looked at the Sailor. The Sailor 
 
 in his simplicity looked at the majesty of the Law. There 
 
 was a time, six long, long years ago, when he would not 
 
 have ventured such a liberty with the most august of hu- 
 
 97
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 man institutions. But he was through that phase of his 
 career. By comparison with all the stripes that had since 
 been laid upon him even the police were gentle and hu- 
 mane. 
 
 There was not a soul in sight except this solemn London 
 bobby, who stood four square in the Sailor's path. 
 
 "Mornin', mister." The Sailor lifted his cap, partly 
 from a sense of fraternity, partly from a proud feeling of 
 being no longer afraid to do so. 
 
 The bobby surveyed the strange nondescript that had 
 been washed up by the tide of Wapping. He looked gravely 
 at the bundle and at the fur cap, and then decided in quite 
 an impersonal way not to return their owner's salutation. 
 
 The Sailor was not hurt by the aloofness of the Law. 
 He had not expected anything else. After all, the police 
 were the police. He knew that a gulf of several hemi- 
 spheres was fixed between a real three-stripe rozzer of the 
 Metropolitan Force and a thing it had pleased fate to call 
 by the name of Henry Harper. 
 
 "A wrong un, I expect," was the reflection of Constable 
 H 23, who always expected a wrong un at that hour of the 
 morning. Upon the spur of this thought, the bobby sud- 
 denly turned on his heel, and saw the wrong un, bundle, 
 fur cap and all, crossing the road like an early morning fox 
 at the lure of a favorite hencoop. Moreover, he was cross- 
 ing it for the reason that he was frantically hungry. 
 
 Across the road, at a junction it formed with three others 
 as mean and dismal as itself, was a sight supremely blessed in 
 the eyes of the Sailor. It was nothing less than a coffee 
 stall in the panoply of matutinal splendor. Steaming fluids, 
 with flames glowing under them, flanked one half of its 
 counter; rock cakes, ham sandwiches, beef sandwiches, rolls 
 and butter, and pork pies, splendidly honest and genuine 
 pork pies, flanked the other half of it. 
 98
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 The proprietor of the stall, an optimist in white apron 
 and shirt sleeves, being unmistakably of the male sex had 
 no terrors for the Sailor. Besides, he was flushed with the 
 knowledge that he had just said good morning to the 
 police. 
 
 "Cup o' coffee, mister, and one o' them." 
 
 Nothing less than a pork pie could meet the need of the 
 Sailor. Moreover, he dived in his pocket, took the first coin 
 that came, which happened to be half a crown, and laid it 
 with true Klondyke magnificence on the counter. 
 ' The proprietor of the stall, who added a power of clear 
 thinking to his many qualities, appeared to see in the action 
 as well as in the coin itself, a declaration of financial status 
 on the part of the young seaman in the remarkable gear. 
 Also this view was shared by the only one of his early morn- 
 ing customers who happened to be at the stall: to wit, an 
 almost aggressively capable looking and slightly bow-legged 
 young man with flaming red hair and ears set at right angles 
 to his head, who was devouring a pork pie with quiet 
 ferocity. 
 
 A single glance passed between Ike, who owned the stall, 
 and the most influential of his patrons, who answered to 
 the name of Ginger; a single glance and that was all. 
 
 "Nothing smaller, sonny?" said Ike, smiling and pleasant. 
 "Not used to big money at seven g.m. Penny the corfee and 
 two pence the pie. Three d." The proprietor raised three 
 fingers and beamed like a seraph. 
 
 Ginger suspended operations on the pork pie to see what 
 Dr. Nansen would do next. 
 
 The Sailor, with memories of Grandma still in his mind, 
 put back the half-crown carefully before he brought out any- 
 thing else. He was not going to give himself away this 
 time. Thus he went warily in search of the smallest coin 
 he could disentangle from the welter of all shapes and sizes 
 99
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 of all values and countries, which had been disposed in 
 every pocket of his person. At last he produced one and 
 laid it on the oilcloth modestly, as though he merely valued 
 it at threepence. But in that part of the world it w r as valued 
 at half a sovereign. 
 
 "Rich aunt," said the proprietor of the stall, with respect- 
 ful humor. 
 
 The young man with the flaming hair turned half about, 
 pork pie in hand, to get a better view of Dr. Nansen. This 
 close observer proceeded to chew steadily without venturing 
 any remark. 
 
 There was nothing left for the Sailor but to give away 
 his wealth in handfuls now. He had to keep diving into his 
 secret hoard, which out of deference to the thought of 
 Grandma he was still determined not to disclose in bulk 
 and sum. Now came up a Spanish fourpenny, now a Yan- 
 kee nickel, now a Frenchman, now a Dutchman, now a 
 Mexican half-dollar, now a noble British quid. For sev- 
 eral crowded and glorious minutes, Ike and the most in- 
 fluential of his patrons had the time of their lives. 
 
 "Thank you, Count," said the proprietor of the stall 
 urbanely, when at last the owner of the fur cap had man- 
 aged to discharge his liability in coin current in the realm of 
 Great Britain. Then, in common with the entranced Gin- 
 ger, he watched the young man recruit exhausted nature. 
 
 The Sailor having made short and clean work of his first 
 pie went on to his second, then to his second cup of coffee, 
 then to a rock cake, then to a ham sandwich, then to a third 
 cup of coffee, then to a third pie, when Ike and Ginger, his 
 patron, watched with ever growing respect. And then came 
 the business of finding ninepence, and with it a second sol- 
 emn procession of Yankees and Dutchmen and Spaniards 
 and Mexicans, which roused the respect of Ginger and Ike 
 to such a pitch that it became almost unbearable. 
 IOO
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "See here, Vanderbilt!" said Ike at last, yielding reluc- 
 tantly the hope that the young plutocrat would ever hit the 
 exact coin that would meet the case. "Dig up that half 
 dollar. Me and Ginger" a polite grimace at Ginger 
 "can make up one-and-nine." 
 
 Ginger, divided between the reserve of undoubted sociaf 
 position he was earning good money down at the docks 
 and an honest desire to make himself agreeable in such 
 romantic circumstances, warily produced a grimy and war- 
 worn sixpence and handed it across the counter, looking Ike 
 straight in the eyes as he did so. 
 
 "Any use?" said Ginger, calm, aloof, and casual. 
 
 In the meantime the Sailor had begun the search for his 
 half-crown. Ginger and Ike waited hopefully, and in the 
 end they were rewarded. The Sailor found it at last, but 
 not before he had made an end of all secrecy. In sheer des- 
 peration he disclosed handfuls of his hoard. 
 
 "Thank yer, Count. One-and-nine change," said Ike. 
 
 IV 
 
 THE Sailor, fortified by one of the best breakfasts of 
 his life, politely said "Mornin' " to the proprietor 
 of the coffee stall with a lift of the cap not ungrace- 
 ful, adding a slightly modified ritual for the benefit of Gin- 
 ger, and stepped out again into the world. 
 
 Ike and Ginger, his patron, turned to watch the Sailor 
 go. Neither spoke, but with eyes that glowed in the gray 
 light of the morning like those of a couple of healthly basil- 
 isks, they marked all that the young man did. The Sailor 
 walked into the middle of the road to the point where four 
 arteries of traffic met, and then hesitation overcame him 
 as to what he should do next. For a little while, he stood 
 101
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 looking up one street and down another with an expression 
 of bewilderment upon his face. 
 
 "So long," said Ginger to Ike. 
 
 The proprietor of the stall had now none to share his 
 thoughts. He saw Ginger, assured but wary, saunter up to 
 the Sailor as he stood at gaze ; saw him touch the young man 
 on the shoulder as if by chance rather than design ; saw him 
 speak words which, bend across the counter as he might, he 
 was too far away to catch. 
 
 "Lookin' for anything?" were the words that Ginger 
 spoke. Moreover, he spoke them blandly, yet with such a 
 subdued air that he might have been talking in his sleep. 
 The Sailor, whose eyes were far away in the gray mists of 
 the morning, was looking for nothing, it seemed. 
 
 "Which way you goin'?" asked Ginger, in the same tone 
 of mild somnambulism. 
 
 "Dunno," said the Sailor, his eyes farther away than 
 ever. 
 
 "Don't know," repeated Ginger. 
 
 At this point, he ventured to look very hard and straight 
 into the face of the Sailor. His knowledge of the human race 
 was pretty considerable for one of his years, and there was 
 something about the wearer of the fur cap that interested 
 him. The face under it was fine-drawn, much tanned by 
 the weather, open as the sky. Ginger then flung an expert's 
 eye over the lean length of blue jersey which surmounted a 
 grotesque pair of leggings. 
 
 "You don't know," said Ginger. "Well, suppose you 
 walk as far as the docks?" 
 
 The Sailor didn't seem to mind. 
 
 "Been long at sea?" inquired Ginger, as with intimate 
 local knowledge he piloted the young man through a series 
 of short cuts. 
 
 "Six year." 
 
 102
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Have ye so!" Ginger was surprised ? nd impressed. 
 "Like it?" 
 
 The eyes of the Sailor looked straight down into those of 
 Ginger. But he didn't say anything. 
 
 "You didn't like it?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Why did you stick it, then?" 
 
 "Dunno." 
 
 The conversation languished a moment, but Ginger's cu- 
 riosity was increasing. 
 
 "Still f oiler the sea?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "What's yer job?" 
 
 "Ain't got one." 
 
 Ginger stroked a resolute jaw. 
 
 "Lookin' for a billet?" 
 
 "Yep." 
 
 "Ashore?" 
 
 The Sailor nodded. 
 
 "Better come with me, then," said Ginger, with an air 
 of decision. "Dare say we can fix you at our shop. Fifteen 
 bob a week . . . fifteen bob and a tizzey ... if you leave 
 it ter me." 
 
 The heart of the Sailor leaped under his jersey. This 
 was big money as money was understood aboard the Mar- 
 garet Carey. 
 
 At the end of a narrow street they came suddenly upon 
 the dock gates. Through these on the left, then to the left 
 again, and then to the right was the private wharf of Ant- 
 cliff and Jackson, Limited, and also at Hull and Grimsby. 
 Ginger, having told the Sailor tersely to wait outside, en- 
 tered the decrepit wooden office at the entrance to the wharf, 
 with the air of a partner in the firm. After he had had 
 two minutes' conversation with a melancholy individual with 
 103
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 a red nose and a celluloid collar, he beckoned to the Sailor 
 to come inside. 
 
 The Sailor entered the office like a man in a dream. 
 
 "Name?" said, or rather snapped, the Individual. 
 
 "Enry Arper." 
 
 The Individual took down the time book from the rack 
 above his head with a vehemence that seemed quite uncalled 
 for, opened it savagely, dipped a pen in a cracked inkpot 
 and dashed down the name ferociously. 
 
 "Sign." 
 
 The Sailor took up the pen coolly and with a sense of 
 power. The Individual was a mere babe at the breast 
 compared to Mr. Thompson and the Old Man. Moreover, 
 the ability to sign his name was his one literary accomplish- 
 ment and he was honorably proud of it. Klondyke had 
 taught him that, and he had hung on for all he was worth to 
 such a priceless asset. H-e-n with a Hen, r-y Henry, H-a-r 
 with a Har, p-e-r Harper the letters were formed very 
 carefully with his tongue sticking out of his mouth. 
 
 Ginger, rather impressed by the insouciance of the whole 
 proceeding, then led the Sailor across the yard to his duties. 
 He wasn't quite such a guy as he looked. There was some- 
 thing there it seemed; something that went pretty deep. 
 Ginger noted it not unfavorably. He was all for depth. 
 He was a great believer in depth. 
 
 The Sailor was informed by this new and providential 
 friend that he had stood out for the princely emolument of 
 seventeen and a tizzey, and had been able to get it. This 
 was big money for his rank of life, but his occupation was 
 menial. He had to haul sacks, to load and unload cargoes. 
 Still he didn't complain. It was the life of a gentleman 
 in comparison with being afloat on the high seas. 
 
 To be sure his money was not as big as it looked. He 
 had to live out of it and to find a berth to sleep in at night. 
 104
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 But making every allowance for longshore extravagance 
 there could be no doubt that this new existence was sheer 
 luxury after six years of Sing and wet hash and hard-tack 
 and a bed in the half-deck of the Margaret Carey. 
 
 Dinner time came at twelve o'clock, and under the asgif 
 of Ginger, the Sailor walked up the main street once more 
 to Ike's coffee stall, and at Ginger's expense had as much 
 as he could eat for sixpence. He wanted to pay his own 
 shot and Ginger's also, but Ginger simply would not hear 
 of such a thing. This was His, he said firmly; and when 
 Ginger spoke firmly it generally had to be His whatever it 
 was or might be. It was nice of Ginger; all the same that 
 paladin was far-sighted, he was clear-headed, he was sure 
 and cool. What Ginger didn't know was not knowledge, 
 and it was no less a person than Ike who said so. 
 
 For example, after dinner, which took exactly twelve 
 minutes by the clock of the Booteries across the road and 
 opposite the stall, Ginger remarked almost in the manner of 
 one who communes with his subliminal self, "There's one 
 thing yer wantin'." 
 
 The Sailor looked incredulous. At that moment he felt 
 it was not in the power of wide earth or high heaven to offer 
 him anything further. 
 
 "You want a belt for your brass." Ginger spoke behind 
 his hand in a whisper. "Mon't carry it loose. Wear it 
 round your waist, next your skin. Money's money." 
 
 Ike, absorbed in the polite occupation of brushing stray 
 crumbs of rock cake from the strip of grimy oilcloth which 
 graced the counter, was so much impressed by Ginger's 
 grasp of mind that he had the misfortune to bring down 
 a jubilee mug with his elbow, without breaking it, fortu- 
 nately. 
 
 Ginger laid such emphasis upon the point that the Sailor 
 accompanied him across the street to Grewcock's emporium, 
 105
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 where body belts were kept in stock. A careful survey of all 
 to be found on the premises, together with an examination, 
 equally careful, of their prices convinced Ginger that better 
 value for the money could be had elsewhere. Thus they 
 withdrew lower down the street to Tollemache and Pear- 
 son's, where unfortunately the scale of charges was even 
 higher. 
 
 This was discouraging, but there was a silver lining to the 
 cloud. It appeared that Ginger had a belt, which in his own 
 opinion was far superior to anything they had yet seen; it 
 was Russia leather of the finest quality and he was willing 
 to sell it for less than it cost if the Sailor was open to the 
 deal. The Sailor was not averse from doing business, as 
 Ginger felt sure would be the case, when the material advan- 
 tages had been pointed out to him. But as Ginger had not 
 the belt upon him he suggested that they should call at his 
 lodgings on their way back to the docks in order that the 
 Sailor might inspect it. 
 
 Ginger's lodgings were within a stone's throw of the 
 wharf of Antcliff and Jackson, Limited. Not only were 
 they very clean and comfortable, but also remarkably con- 
 venient; in fact, they were most desirable lodgings in every 
 way. Their only drawback was they were not cheap. 
 Otherwise they were first class. 
 
 By a coincidence the Sailor, it seemed, was in need of 
 good lodgings as well as a belt for his money. Before he 
 returned to the wharf of Antcliff and Jackson, Limited, at 
 one o'clock, he had been provided with things so necessary 
 to his comfort, well-being, and social status. 
 
 E Sailor paid six-and-six for the belt of Russia 
 leather, and in Ginger's opinion that was as good 
 1 06
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 as getting it for nothing. Also he agreed to share bed 
 and board with Ginger for the sum of twelve shillings 
 a week. It was top price, Ginger allowed, but then the 
 accommodation was extra. Out of the window of the bed- 
 room you could pitch a stone into the wharf of Antcliff and 
 Jackson, Limited. 
 
 This arrangement, in Ginger's opinion, was providential 
 for both parties. Such lodgings would have been beyond 
 Ginger's means had he been unable to find a decent chap 
 to share them with him. Then the Sailor was young, in 
 Ginger's opinion, in spite of the fact that he had been six 
 years at sea. It would be a great thing in Ginger's 
 opinion for so young a sailor to be taken in hand by a lands- 
 man of experience until he got a bit more used to terrier 
 firmer. 
 
 So much was the Sailor impressed by Ginger's disinter- 
 estedness that at six o'clock that evening, when his first day's 
 work was done, he brought his gear from the wharf to No. 
 I, Paradise Alley. Ginger superintended its removal in the 
 manner of an uncle deeply concerned for the welfare of a 
 favorite nephew. Indeed this was Ginger's permanent at- 
 titude to the Sailor from this time on; all the same, he 
 received twelve shillings in advance for a week's board and 
 lodging. Uncle and nephew then sat down to a high tea of 
 hot sausages, with unlimited toast and dripping, before a 
 good fire, in a front parlor so clean and comfortable that 
 the mind of the Sailor was carried back a long six years 
 to Mother and the Foreman Shunter. 
 
 When Henry Harper sat down to this meal with Ginger 
 opposite, and that philanthropist removed the cover from 
 three comely sausages, measured them carefully and helped 
 the Sailor to the larger one-and-a-half, his first thought was 
 that he was now as near heaven as he was ever likely to get. 
 What a change from the food, the company, and the squalor 
 8 107
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 of the Margaret Carey! Klondyke himself could not have 
 handed him the larger sausage-and-a-half with an air more 
 genuinely polite. There was a self-possession about Ginger 
 that was almost as wine and music to the torn soul of 
 Henry Harper. 
 
 As the Sailor sat eating his sausage-and-a-half and after 
 the manner of a sybarite dipping in abundant gravy the 
 perfectly delicious toast and dripping, he felt he would never 
 be able to repay the debt he already owed to Ginger. That 
 floating hell which had been his home for six long years, 
 that other hell the native haunt of Auntie where all his 
 early childhood had been passed, even that more contiguous 
 hell in the next street but two, the abode of Grandma, 
 were this evening a thousand miles away. Just as the mere 
 presence of Klondyke had once given him courage and self- 
 respect which in his darkest hours since he had never alto- 
 gether lost, so now, after such a meal, the mere sight of Gin- 
 ger sitting at the other side of the fire, smoking Log Cabin, 
 put him in new heart, touched him, if not with a sense of joy, 
 with a sense of hope. 
 
 As became a man of parts Ginger was not content to sit 
 for the rest of the evening smoking Log Cabin and gazing 
 into the fire. At a quarter past seven, by the cuckoo cloclc 
 on the chimneypiece, there came a knock at the outer door 
 of the room which opened on the street. This was to herald 
 the arrival of Ginger's own private newspaper, the Evening 
 Mercury, which had been brought by a tattered urchin of 
 nine, of whom the Sailor caught a passing glimpse, and as 
 in a glass darkly beheld his former self. 
 
 In the eyes of the Sailor hardly anything could have min- 
 istered so much to Ginger's social position as that every 
 evening of his life, Sundays excepted, his own newspaper 
 should be delivered at No. I, Paradise Alley. It was im- 
 possible for the Sailor to forget his early days in spite of the 
 108
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 fact that fortune had come to him now in a miraculous way. 
 His world was still divided into those who sold papers and 
 those who bought them. Ginger clearly belonged to the 
 latter exclusive and princely caste. He was of the class of 
 Klondyke of Klondyke who in his shore-goings in the 
 uttermost parts of the earth behaved in an indescribably 
 regal and plutocratic manner. Sometimes it had appeared 
 to the Sailor, such were the amazing uses to which Klondyke 
 had put his money, that the earth was his and all the lands 
 and the waters thereof. 
 
 Ginger's ideas were not as princely as those of Klon- 
 dyke ; that was, in regard to money itself. He did not throw 
 money about in the way that Klondyke did, nor had he Klon- 
 dyke's air of genial magnificence which vanquished all sorts 
 and conditions of men and women. But in their own way 
 Ginger's ideas were quite as imperial. 
 
 As soon as Ginger opened his evening paper he remarked, 
 with a short whistle, "I see Wednesday has beat the Villa." 
 
 "No," said the incredulous Sailor. 
 
 It was an act of politeness on the part of the Sailor to be 
 incredulous. He might have accepted the fact without any 
 display of emotion. But he felt it was due to his feelings 
 that he should make some kind of comment, for they had 
 been stirred considerably by the victory of \Vednesday over 
 the Villa. 
 
 "Win by much?" asked the Sailor, his heart suddenly 
 beginning to beat under his seaman's jersey. 
 
 "Three two," said Ginger. 
 
 "At Brum?" 
 
 "No, at Sheffle, in foggy weather, on a holdin' turf." 
 
 The Sailor's eyes glowed. And then with his chin in his 
 hands he gazed deep into the fire. 
 
 "I once seen the Villa," he said in a dreaming voice. It 
 was the proudest memory of his life. 
 109
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Ginger withdrew his mind from a consideration of the 
 Police Report and the latest performances of the Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 "At the Palace?" Ginger's tone was deep as becomes 
 one entering upon an epic subject. 
 
 "No," said the Sailor, the doors of memory unlocked, 
 "At Blackhampton. The Villa come to play the Rovers. 
 My! they could play a bit. Won the Cup that year. Me 
 and young Arris climbed a tree overlookin' the ground. 
 Young Arris got pinched by a rozzer." 
 
 Ginger was not impressed by the reminiscence. It seemed 
 a pity that a chap who had been six years before the mast, 
 and not a bad sort of fellow, should give himself away like 
 that. From the style and manner of the anecdote it was 
 clear to this exact thinker that the Sailor had begun pretty 
 low down in the scale. In the pause which followed the 
 Sailor shivered like a warhorse who hears the battle from 
 afar. The memories of his youth were surging upon him. 
 In the meantime, Ginger, who appeared to be frowning over 
 the Government and the Police news, was watching the 
 Sailor's eyes very intently. He was watching those strange 
 eyes with a cool detachment. 
 
 "Enery," said Ginger, choosing his words carefully, "if 
 I was you, do you know what I'd do?" 
 
 Enery didn't. 
 
 "I'd very seriously be considerin' how I could earn my 
 four quid a week." 
 
 The Sailor smiled sadly. He knew from cold experience 
 that such a remark was sheer after-supper romance. Still it 
 must be very nice to own a mind like Ginger's, which could 
 weave such fantasy about the facts of life. 
 
 "If I was you," proceeded Ginger, "I wouldn't sleep in 
 my bed until I was earnin' my four quid a week, winter and 
 summer." 
 
 no
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 The Sailor who knew the price exacted in blood and 
 tears to earn a pound a month could only smile. 
 
 "I'm goin' out for it meself," said Ginger. "And I'm 
 not so tall as you. And I haven't your make and shape, I 
 haven't your turn o' the leg, I haven't your arms an' wrisses." 
 
 Ginger might have been speaking Dutch for all that the 
 Sailor could follow the emanations of his remarkable intel- 
 lect. 
 
 "See here," an unnecessary adjuration since the Sailor 
 was looking in solemn wonder with both eyes "my pal 
 Dinkie Dawson has just been engaged for three years by the 
 Blackhampton Rovers at four thick uns a week. Fact." 
 
 The Sailor didn't doubt it. The very genius of scepticism 
 would have respected such an announcement. 
 
 "Dinkie Dawson, if you please," said Ginger. "Why, 
 I used to punch his head fearful. He did my ciphering at 
 
 school an' now an' now !" Ginger was overcome by 
 
 emotion. "But if a mug like Dink yes, mark you, a mug 
 can earn big money, I'm sort of thinkin' that puts it right 
 up to William Herbert Jukes, Esquire." 
 
 The eyes of the Sailor glowed like stars in the light of the 
 fire. It was almost as if he had heard the flutter of the 
 wings of destiny. As a boy of nine flying shoeless and stock- 
 ingless through the icy mud of Blackhampton, bawling, "Re- 
 sult of the Cup tie," he had felt deep in his heart the first 
 stab of ambition. One day he would help the Rovers bring 
 the Cup to his native city. That was no more than a dream. 
 The Rovers were heroes and supermen not that Henry 
 Harper was able to formulate them in terms of psychological 
 accuracy. And here was Ginger, a new and very remark- 
 able friend, whom fate had thrown across his path, seated 
 within three yards of him, setting his soul on fire. 
 
 "Why not?" There was no fire in the soul of Ginger. 
 His voice was arctic cold, but the purpose in it was deadly, 
 ill
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "If a guy like Dink, why not me?" A slight pause. "And 
 if Ginger Jukes, who is five foot six an' draws the beam at 
 eleven stun in his birthday suit, why not Mr. Enery Arper?" 
 And Ginger looked across at the Sailor almost with pity. 
 
 The heart of the Sailor began to thump violently. And 
 there came something soft and large in his throat. 
 
 "How tall are you, Sailor? Six foot?" The eye of an 
 expert traversed the finely turned form. 
 
 "Thereabouts." 
 
 "What's your fighting weight in the buff?" 
 
 "Dunno." 
 
 "Ought to know to a hounce. But it don't matter. 
 You'll thicken. How old next birthday?" 
 
 "Nineteen." 
 
 "That's a good age. Wish I was. I'm one and twenty." 
 
 The Sailor thought he looked more. 
 
 "I'm a lot more in some things," said Ginger. "But at 
 football I shall not be one and twenty until the middle o' 
 Janawerry." 
 
 The Sailor was a little out of his depth. There was a 
 subtlety about Ginger that went far beyond anything he had 
 ever met. Even Klondyke, great man as he was, seemed a 
 mere child by comparison with this forcible thinker. 
 
 "Nineteen is just the age," said Ginger, "to learn to chuck 
 yerself about. But I dare say you know how to do that, 
 having follered the sea." 
 
 "I can climb a bit," the Sailor admitted with great mod- 
 esty. 
 
 "Can yer jump?" 
 
 The Sailor could jump a bit too. 
 
 "Could you throw yerself at the ball like a rattlesnake 
 if you see it fizzing for the fur corner o' the net?" 
 
 The Sailor's modesty could not hazard an opinion on a 
 matter of such technical complexity. 
 112
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "I expect so," said Ginger, with a condescension that was 
 most agreeable. "You are just the build for a goalkeeper. 
 If it's fine tomorrow dinner-hour, we'll put you through 
 your paces on Cox's Piece. I'm thinkin', Enery, you and me 
 will soon be out after that four quid. Anyhow, I'll answer 
 for Mr. W. H." 
 
 With the air of a Bismarck, Mr. W. H. Jukes, alias; 
 Ginger, resumed an extremely concentrated perusal of the 
 evening's news. 
 
 VI 
 
 THAT night the repose of the Sailor was rather dis- 
 turbed. For one thing he was unused to sleeping on 
 dry land; for another Ginger took up a lot of the 
 bed, and as he slept next the wall, the Sailor's position on 
 the outer verge was decidedly perilous. Also when Ginger 
 lay on his back, which he did about two, he was a snorer. 
 Therefore the Sailor had to adjust himself to circumstances 
 before he could begin to repose at all. 
 
 Even when slumber had really set in, which was not until 
 after three, he had to wriggle his lean form into the famous 
 but very tight jersey of the Blackhampton Rovers, the his- 
 toric blue and chocolate. But what a moment it was when 
 he came proudly on to the field in the midst of the heroes of 
 his early dreams, coolly buttoning his goalkeeping gloves, 
 and pretending not to be aware that thousands were massed 
 tier upon tier around the amphitheater craning their necks 
 to get a. glimpse of him, and shouting themselves hoarse with 
 their cries of battle! 
 
 It was odd that his first game with his beloved Rovers 
 should be against the doughtiest of their foes, the world- 
 famous Villa. And it seemed at first that the occasion 
 would be too much for him. But Ginger was there, ruddy
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 and insouciant, also in a magnificent new jersey. Ginger 
 was playing full back, and just as the match was about to 
 begin he turned round to the goalkeeper and said, "Now, 
 Sailor, pull up your socks, old friend." But the queer thing 
 was, the voice did not belong to Ginger, it was the voice of 
 Klondyke. Then confusion came. It was not Ginger, it 
 was Klondyke himself who was playing full back, Klondyke 
 the noblest hero of them all. So much was the Sailor as- 
 tonished by the discovery that he fell out of bed, without 
 disturbing Ginger who was in occupation of three parts of 
 it and snoring like a traction engine. 
 
 Next day, the dinner-hour being fine, the Sailor made his 
 debut as a football player on Cox's Piece in the presence of 
 a critical assembly. A number of the choicest spirits of the 
 neighborhood, some in work, some out of it, but one and all 
 fired with real enthusiasm for a noble game, gathered with 
 a football about a quarter past twelve. This was a stal- 
 wart company, but as soon as Ginger appeared on the scene 
 he took sole command of it. There were those who could 
 kick a football as well as he, there were those who were 
 older, bigger, stronger, but by sheer pressure of character 
 in that assembly Ginger's word was law. 
 
 "Parkins," said Ginger, "you can't keep goal. Come 
 out of it, Parkins. Here's a chap as can." 
 
 While the crestfallen and unwilling Parkins deferred to 
 the master mind, a wave of solemn curiosity passed through 
 the cognoscenti of Cox's Piece. The Sailor was seen to doff 
 his wonderful fur cap, which alone was a guaranty of 
 untold possibilities in its wearer, to roll up solemnly the 
 sleeves of his tattered blue seaman's jersey, and 10 take 
 his place in the goal which had been formed by two heaps 
 of coats. 
 
 "He's a sailor," said Ginger, for the general information. 
 But the statement was entirely superfluous. It was clear 
 114
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 to the humblest intelligence that he was a sailor and noth- 
 ing else, but Ginger knew the value of such an announce- 
 ment. To a landsman and these were landsmen all a 
 sailor is a sailor. Strange glories are woven round his 
 visionary brow. He is a being apart. Things are permitted 
 to him in speech and deed that would excite criticism in an 
 ordinary mortal. For instance, the first shot at goal, which 
 Ginger took himself by divine right, and quite an easy one, 
 by design, for a real goalkeeper to parry, the Sailor missed 
 altogether. Had he been aught but a sailor his reputation 
 as far as Cox's Piece was concerned would have been gone 
 forever. 
 
 "Ain't got his sea legs yet." Ginger's coolness and im- 
 pressiveness were extraordinary. "Been eight year at sea. 
 Round the world nine times. Wrecked twice. Seed the 
 serpent off the coast o' Madagascar. Give me the ball, 
 Igson. Wait till he gets his eye in an' you'll see." 
 
 Ginger's second shot at goal was easier than his first, and 
 the Sailor, to the gratification of his mentor, was able to 
 mobilize in time to stop it. 
 
 "What did I tell yer?" said Ginger. "You'll see what 
 he can do when he gets his sea legs." 
 
 Within a week the Sailor was the unofficial hero of Cox's 
 Piece. Ginger, of course, was the only authentic one. But 
 he was too great a man ever to be visited by a suspicion of 
 jealousy. Jealousy is a second rate passion, and whatever 
 Ginger was he was not second rate. Besides the Sailor's 
 remarkable success on Cox's Piece increased the prestige of 
 his discoverer. 
 
 The Sailor took to goalkeeping as a duck takes to water. 
 The truth was he was a goalkeeper born, as a poet is born or 
 a soldier or a musician. His slender body was hung on 
 wires, his muscles were toughened into steel and whipcord 
 by long years of hard and perilous training. Then his eye,
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 keen and clear as a hawk's, was quick and true. Also he 
 was active as a cat, and with very little practice was able 
 to compass that tour de force of the goalkeeper's art, the 
 trick of flinging himself full length upon the ground in order 
 to parry a swift shot at short range. 
 
 Ginger was a wonderfully shrewd judge of men. And 
 this faculty had never shown itself more clearly than in 
 seeing a born goalkeeper in the Sailor even before that young 
 man had made his debut on Cox's Piece. The brilliant form 
 of his protege was a personal triumph for Ginger. His 
 reputation for omniscience was more firmly established than 
 ever. In little more than a fortnight the Sailor was able 
 to keep goal not merely to the admiration of Cox's Piece, 
 his fame had begun to spread. 
 
 It was not that Henry Harper, even in these critical 
 days, was wholly absorbed in the business of learning to 
 play football. Of vast importance to his progress in the 
 world, as in Ginger's opinion that art was, there was still 
 time and opportunity for the Sailor to think of other things. 
 
 He was much impressed by Ginger's perusal of the eve- 
 ning's news, which always took place after supper. At the 
 same time he was troubled. Ginger took it for granted 
 that Enery could read a newspaper. He treated that as a 
 matter of course, perhaps for the reason that he had seen 
 the Sailor sign his name, laboriously it was true, in the 
 time-book of Antcliff and Jackson, Limited. But Ginger, 
 with all his shrewdness, made a bad mistake. He little 
 guessed that the Sailor's signature stood for the sum of his 
 learning. He little guessed when he flung the Evening Mer- 
 cury across to the Sailor after he had done with it him- 
 self, and the Sailor thanked him with that odd politeness 
 which rather puzzled him, and became absorbed in the 
 paper's perusal, that the young man could hardly read a 
 word. 
 
 116
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 On the evening this first happened the Sailor had in- 
 tended no deceit. He was so straight by nature that he 
 could not have set himself deliberately to take in anybody. 
 The deception came about without any will of his to deceive 
 at all; and he was soon having to maintain a false impres- 
 sion which he had not intended to create. All the same, he 
 would have been mortally ashamed to let the cat out of his 
 bag. He well knew that it would have been a crushing blow 
 to that terrible thing, the pride of Ginger. 
 
 The young man wrestling behind the Evening Mercury 
 with the simplest words it contained, and able to make very 
 little of them in the way of sense because they so seldom 
 came together, reflected ruefully that he ought at all costs to 
 have borne in mind Klondyke's advice. "Stick to the read- 
 ing and writing, old friend. That's your line of country. 
 You'll get more out of those than ever you'll get out of the 
 sea." Bitterly he regretted now that he had not set store 
 by those inspired words. He began to see clearly that you 
 could not hope to cut much ice ashore unless you were a man 
 of education. 
 
 He was able to write his name, and that was all. Also 
 he knew his alphabet and could count up to a hundred if 
 you gave him plenty of time. There were also a few words 
 he knew at sight, and thirty, perhaps, short ones, and the 
 easiest in the terribly difficult English language, that he 
 could spell with an effort. This was the sum of his knowl- 
 edge, and the whole of it was due to Klondyke, who had 
 given many a half-hour of his leisure to imparting it in the 
 cold and damp misery of the half-deck with no more than a 
 sputter of candle by which to do it. 
 
 Sailor had clung desperately to all the scraps of learning 
 
 which Klondyke had given him, but when his friend left 
 
 the ship he had not had the grit to plow the hard furrow 
 
 of knowledge for himself. Somehow he had not been able 
 
 117
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 to stick it. He needed the inspiration of Klondyke's voice 
 and presence, of Klondyke's humor and friendliness. He 
 could hardly bring himself to open the Bible his friend had 
 given him, and when he tried to read the Brooklyn Eagle 
 he couldn't see it for tears. 
 
 Now he had left the sea for good, he knew a bitter price 
 would be exacted for his weakness. To begin with it would 
 be impossible to tell Ginger the truth. Ginger was the 
 kind of man who would look down on him if once he knew 
 his secret. Besides it was a grievous handicap ashore never 
 to have been to school. Moreover the Sailor was so honest 
 that any kind of deception hurt him. 
 
 "Read that yarn about Kitchener and the Gippy?" 
 
 "No," said the miserable Sailor. 
 
 "Better. Page three. Bottom. Damn good. What?" 
 
 "Yep," said the Sailor, wishing to commit the act of 
 hari-kari. He must find a way out. The longer the pre- 
 tense was kept up the worse it would be. But it was impos- 
 sible to tell Ginger that he couldn't even find the yarn of 
 Kitchener and the Gippy, let alone attempt to read it. 
 
 VII 
 
 GINGER was a wonderful chap, but his nature was 
 hard. He had little of Klondyke's far-sighted sym- 
 pathy, which in circumstances of ever growing dif- 
 ficulty would have been an enormous help to the Sailor. 
 
 Henry Harper had felt no shame when he told the dismal 
 truth to Klondyke that he could neither read nor write. 
 But he would rather have his tongue cut out than tell that 
 particular truth to Ginger. Still the game of make-believe 
 must not go on. It made the young man horribly uncom- 
 118
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 fortable to be driven to play it after supper every night. 
 Something must be done if the esteem, perhaps the friend- 
 ship, of Ginger was not to be forfeited. 
 
 The Sailor was no fool. Therefore he set his wits very 
 seriously to work to grasp the nettle without exposing his 
 ignorance more than was absolutely necessary. He spent 
 anxious hours, not only during the day, but in the watches 
 of the night, trying to find a way out. 
 
 One Saturday evening he sat in a frame of mind border- 
 ing upon ecstasy. At the instance of Ginger, who was the 
 captain and treasurer of the club, the chairman of the com- 
 mittee, and also one of its vice-presidents, the Sailor had been 
 invited that afternoon to keep goal for the Isle of Dogs Al- 
 bion. The Sailor had done so. Ginger had shaken hands 
 with him impressively after the match, and had solemnly 
 told him that he had won it for his side, which was truly 
 the case. And the fact was frankly admitted by the rest 
 of the team. 
 
 "Mark my words," said Ginger to his peers, "that feller's 
 young at present, but he plays for England when he gets a 
 bit more powder in his hold." 
 
 This was talking, but no member of the Isle of Dogs 
 Albion was so misguided as to argue the matter. Ginger's 
 word was the law of nations. Besides, the Sailor was a 
 goalkeeping genius; his form that afternoon could not have 
 been surpassed by Robinson of Chelsea. 
 
 That evening as the Sailor sat gazing, chin on hands, 
 into the fire, while Ginger read out the results of the after- 
 noon's matches, he began to think to a purpose. 
 
 "Sunderland hasn't half put it acrost the Arsenal. Villa 
 and Wolves a draw." 
 
 "Ginger," said the Sailor wistfully, "if you had been to 
 sea for near seven year an' you had forgot a bit o' what you 
 knowed at school, what would you do about it?" 
 119
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Do about what? 'Otspur hasn't half punctured Liver- 
 pool, I don't think." 
 
 "Do about learnin' what you've forgot?" 
 
 "Come again, pardner. I'm not Old Moore. Manches- 
 ter City and Birmingham no goals half time." 
 
 "Do about learnin' a bit o' figurin' what you ought to 
 ha' knowed afore you went to sea?" 
 
 "Do you think I'm Datas?" The flash of scorn seared 
 the soul of Henry Harper like the live end of an electric 
 wire. "It's a silly juggins question. How the hell should 
 I know?" 
 
 No, Ginger was not helpful. 
 
 But tonight the Sailor was in the seventh heaven, he was 
 walking on air, therefore with a courage not his as a rule 
 he would not own defeat. 
 
 "Suppose you'd almost forgot how to read the news. 
 What'd you do about it?" 
 
 "Do about it? Why, I'd pleadin' well go and drown 
 meself." 
 
 The Sailor drew in his breath in a little gasp. But the 
 matter was so tragic that he must go on. And it was no 
 more than Klondyke had foreseen. 
 
 "Perhaps there's someone as would learn me," said the 
 Sailor half to himself. And then his pluck gave out. 
 
 Silence fell for twenty minutes. Ginger smoked Log 
 Cabin and read the evening's news, while the Sailor con- 
 tinued to stare in the fire. Then Ginger flung across the 
 Evening Mercury with, as the Sailor fancied, a slight touch 
 of contempt. But Henry Harper had not the heart to take 
 up the paper tonight. He must never take it up again until 
 he had learned to read it! 
 
 In the meantime Ginger reflected. 
 
 "Sailor," he said, looking at the fire-lit figure, with vi- 
 brations of depth and power in his voice, "you'll go far. 
 120
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 That's my opinion, an' I don't talk out o' the back o' my 
 neck as a general rule. You'll go far." 
 
 This conveyed nothing to the Sailor. 
 
 "I'm tellin' yer," said Ginger. Rising with his freckled 
 face shining and his deep mind fired by ambition, he took 
 from a drawer in the supper table a sheet of writing-paper, 
 an envelope, and a blotter which a philanthropic insurance 
 company had presented to the landlady, an ancient ink 
 bottle and a prehistoric pen from the chimneypiece, cleared 
 a space by piling saucers upon plates and cups on the top 
 of them, and then sat down to compose the following letter: 
 
 DEAR DINK, 
 
 I write these few lines hoping you are well as they leave 
 me at present. A chap has just joined our club as I think 
 you ought to know about. He's a sailor, and his goal-keeping 
 is marvelous. None of our chaps has seen anything like it. 
 Thought you might like to know this as the Hotspurs is after 
 him. Two of their directors came to see him play this after- 
 noon, and from what I hear they are going to make him an 
 offer. But from what he tells me he would rather play for 
 the Rovers than anybody as he is Blackhampton born, and 
 though he's been nine times round the world and wrecked 
 twice, he thinks there's no town like it. At present he is 
 young and green, being took to sea as quite a kid, but I 
 honestly think your directors ought to know about him, as 
 he will be snapped up at once. I can arrange to bring him 
 over to Backhampton any Saturday for your club to look 
 at If they care to give us both a trial with the Rovers' second 
 team. \Ve would both come for our expenses, railway fares, 
 and one day's wages, but he won't come without me as we 
 lodge together and play for the same club. You can take it 
 from me he's a Nonesuch. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 W. H. JUKES. 
 
 P. S. This season I am in pretty fair form myself at right 
 full back. W. H. J.
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Ginger wrote this letter with great pains in a very clear 
 and masterful hand. He addressed it to Mr. D. Dawson 
 (Blackhampton Rovers F.C.), 12 Curzon Street, Black- 
 hampton. Then, without saying a word to the Nonesuch, 
 he went out to post it at the end of the street. Having done 
 this, thinking hard, he made his way to the little alien hair- 
 dresser in the High Road, who had the honor of his patron- 
 age, and sternly ordered "a hair cut, and see that you go 
 close with the lawn mower." 
 
 Meanwhile the Sailor sat by the fire. Presently the room 
 was invaded by Mrs. Sparks, the landlady. She was a 
 fatigued and faded creature, but honest, discreet, and thor- 
 oughly respectable in Ginger's opinion, and in that of his 
 fellow lodger there could be no higher. Besides it was no 
 secret that Mrs. Sparks had seen better days. She was 
 the widow of a mariner, who had borne a gallant part in 
 the bombardment of Alexandria, although his country and 
 hers appeared rather to have overlooked the fact. 
 
 The Sailor was a little afraid of Mrs. Sparks. She was 
 to his mind a lady, and overawed by her sex in general, 
 the young man was rather embarrassed by her air of auster- 
 ity. She never spoke without choosing her words, also the 
 order in which to place them ; and Ginger, who was frankly 
 and cynically contemptuous in private discourse of Mrs. 
 Sparks' sex, was always careful to address her as "Ma'am," 
 a fact which as far as the Sailor was concerned amply 
 vouched for her status. 
 
 At ordinary times the Sailor would not have dared to 
 speak to his landlady unless she had first spoken to him. But 
 conight he was in a state of excitement. By some curious 
 means the events of the afternoon had translated him. A 
 tiny bud of ambition was breaking its filaments in his 
 brain. 
 
 While Mrs. Sparks, weary and sallow of countenance, 
 
 122
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 was clearing the table, a compelling force made the Sailor 
 remove his chin from his hands and cease gazing into the 
 fire. 
 
 "Beggin* pardon, m'm," he said, with the odd, almost 
 cringing humbleness which always inspired him in his pas- 
 sages with even the least considerable of Mrs. Sparks' sex, 
 "would you mind if I ask you a question?" 
 
 The landlady was a little surprised. Her lodgers were 
 not in the habit of taking her into their confidence. But in 
 spite of a bleak exterior she was less formidable than she 
 looked, and this the Sailor had felt to be the case. In his 
 tone, moreover, was a note to touch the heart of any woman. 
 
 "Not at all," said Mrs. Sparks genteelly. 
 
 "If you had been seven year at sea," said the young man, 
 enfolding her with his deep eyes, "an' you had forgot your 
 figurin', what would you do about it?" 
 
 Mrs. Sparks was so completely at a loss that the Sailor 
 felt it to be his duty to make himself a little clearer. 
 
 "Suppose, m'm, you had forgot all yer knowed of your 
 writin' and readin' while you was at sea, what 'u'd you do 
 about that?" 
 
 Mrs. Sparks shook her head. It was a ladylike expression 
 of hopeless defeat. 
 
 The Sailor grew desperate. 
 
 "See here, m'm." He took up the Evening Mercury 
 with a fierceness which immensely surprised Mrs. Sparks; 
 he looked so gentle that he didn't seem to have it in him. 
 "It's like this year. I can't read a word o' this pleadin' 
 paper. Beg parding, lady." Her face had hardened at 
 such a term of the sea. The voice of the young man 
 died suddenly as if thoroughly ashamed of its own vehe- 
 mence. 
 
 However the vehemence had done the trick. 
 
 "I would learn," said the landlady curtly. 
 9 123
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Yep," said the Sailor, with the blush of a girl, "it's what 
 I want to." 
 
 "Then why not?" 
 
 "Dunno how, m'm," he said helplessly. 
 
 "Why not go to a school?" 
 
 "Can't while I'm at work, m'm." 
 
 "There are schools you can go to at night." 
 
 Mrs. Sparks swept up the crumbs, whisked away the table 
 cloth, replaced it with a cheerful looking red one, and re- 
 tired with a look which the Sailor took for disdain. 
 
 No, he ought never to have let the cat out of the bag. It 
 would have been better to have bitten off his tongue. But 
 after all it was only Mrs. Sparks . . . although Mrs. Sparks 
 was Mrs. Sparks. He must be very careful how he let on 
 to people about his shameful ignorance. 
 
 He was a fool to worry about it. "It's nothing to be 
 ashamed of, old friend," Klondyke had said, but the world 
 was not made up of Klondykes. It was something to be 
 ashamed of if you looked at it as Mrs. Sparks and Ginger 
 did. He felt, as far as they were concerned, he would never 
 live it down. Once more he looked into the fire in order to 
 resume the captaincy of his soul. But it was no use. Fix 
 his will as he might, the famous blue and chocolate jerseys 
 of the Blackhampton Rovers had yielded permanently to 
 Mrs. Sparks with a look of scorn in her face. 
 
 He got up and in sudden despair took his cap off the peg 
 behind the door. No longer could he stay in the room with 
 his shame. More space, more air was needed. As he flung 
 open the outer door, a gust of damp fog came in; and with 
 it came the squat, powerful, slightly bow-legged figure of 
 Ginger, looking more than ever like a man of destiny now 
 he had had his hair cut. 
 
 "Where goin'?" 
 
 "Walk," said the Sailor miserably. 
 124
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Nice night for a walk. Rum one you are." Had the 
 Sailor's promise as a goalkeeper been less remarkable Ginger 
 would have been tempted to rebuke such irresponsible be- 
 havior. As it was he was content merely to place it on 
 record. 
 
 "Well if you must, you must," said Ginger magisterially, 
 closing the door. 
 
 VIII 
 
 AT five minutes past six on Tuesday evening, when 
 Ginger came home from work, a letter was wait- 
 ing for him on the sitting-room chimneypiece. The 
 first thing he noticed was that it bore the Blackhampton 
 postmark, but being a very cool and sure hand, he did not 
 open it at once. He preferred to fulfil the first and obvious 
 duty of a self-respecting citizen of "cleaning himself up" at 
 the scullery sink with water from the pump, and of sitting 
 down to a dish of tripe and fried onions, always a favorite 
 with him, and particularly on Tuesday when the tripe was 
 fresh, while the Sailor, looking rather forlorn, poured out 
 the tea. Ginger chose to do all this with astounding sang- 
 froid before opening Dinkie Dawson's letter. 
 
 He read slowly, with unruffled countenance. Then with 
 a noncommittal air, he threw the letter carelessly across the 
 table to the Sailor, who had to retrieve it from the slop basin 
 which fortunately was empty. 
 
 "Read it," said Ginger, his face a mask, his tone ice cold, 
 without a trace of emotion. 
 
 The Sailor blushed vividly. 
 
 "Read it, yer fool," said Ginger. The pitiless autocrat 
 was now striking through the tone of detachment. 
 
 Hopelessly confused, the Sailor turned the letter the right 
 side up. But he didn't attempt to read. He knew it was 
 125
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 no use. There was not a line he could understand, yet he 
 was forced to hold it before his eyes. 
 
 "What do you think o' that, young feller, my lad?" 
 
 S^rn triumph was striking now through Ginger's almost 
 terrible detachment. "What do you think on it, eh ?" 
 
 The Sailor was not able to think anything of it at thr 
 moment. 
 
 "None so dusty what?" Ginger fairly glowed with a 
 sense of victory. 
 
 "Yep," said the Sailor feebly. 
 
 "About fixes it what?" 
 
 "Yep," said the Sailor. 
 
 He gave back the letter to Ginger with nervous guilt, 
 neither knowing why it was none so dusty nor what it was 
 that it fixed. 
 
 "Yer silly perisher. Don't yer see what it means ?" 
 
 The Sailor nodded feebly. 
 
 "Very well, then, why don't yer say so?" 
 
 There was the light <c>f contempt in the truculent eyes of 
 Ginger. The Sailor simply could not meet them. 
 
 "Blymy" the scorn of Ginger was withering "if you 
 hadn't been nine times round the world afore the mast, I 
 should say you was just a guy I should straight. Don't 
 you understand what Dinkie Dawson says?" 
 
 The Sailor's stammer might be taken for, "Yep." 
 
 "Very well, then," said Ginger, so savagely that he had 
 to read the Evening Mercury in order to calm himself. 
 
 The Sailor began to wish he was dead. And then sud- 
 denly Ginger laid down the paper. 
 
 "This touch is goin' to cost you money, young Mister 
 Man," he said, magniloquently. 
 
 The Sailor's face was haggard. 
 
 "You'll have to lay out thirty bob on a new suit of clothes 
 to start with." 
 
 126
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 The Sailor nodded. 
 
 "Of course, you can get a suit for less, but myself I'm 
 all for quality." 
 
 The Sailor nodded. 
 
 "If you'll take my advice, young feller, you'll go to Dago 
 and Rogers and get one o' them blue suitings as they shows 
 in the winder, neat but not gaudy, cut in the West End 
 style. I'm thinkin' o' gettin' one meself ; you simply can't 
 help lookin' a gentleman in one o' them, with a spotted tie 
 and a double turnover collar." 
 
 "Yep," said the Sailor, to whom all this was as intelligible 
 as a play of Sophocles. 
 
 "You'll also want a nice neat Gladstone." 
 
 "Yep," said the Sailor abjectly. 
 
 "Brown paper parcel and your boots tied on by string at 
 the end o' it won't do in this scene, young feller." 
 
 "No," said the Sailor. 
 
 "Got to dress the shop winder a bit in this act." A 
 strange inner light was beginning to gleam in the eyes of 
 Ginger. "Nice new Gladstone, pair o' nice wide knickers 
 cut saucy round the knee, and a set o' new laces in your 
 boots. And I'm thinking one o' those all-wool white sweat- 
 ers you can get at Tatlow's might turn out a good invest- 
 ment." 
 
 The Sailor nodded feebly. 
 
 "Never spile the ship for a ha'porth o' tar. Allus dress 
 the part. Never stint a coat o' paint for Mrs. Jarley's Wax- 
 works." 
 
 The Sailor nodded. 
 
 "You've got to learn to knock the public silly," concluded 
 Ginger, with a ferocity almost frightening, "if you are 
 ever goin' to cut any ice on this bleedin' planet." 
 
 Utterly nonplussed, the Sailor went early to bed with his 
 shame. 
 
 127
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 IX 
 
 IN the opinion of Cox's Piece, "lift" was not the word 
 for the bearing of Ginger on the morrow at the mid- 
 day gathering. It was pardonable, no doubt; Ginger 
 was Ginger, a being apart. Twopenny Sturgess wouldn't 
 half have had it dusted out of him. It wouldn't have been 
 stood from Gogo, or Hogan, or Foxey Green, but with Gin- 
 ger it was different. It was realized in a way that was 
 almost sinister by the cognoscenti of Cox's Piece that if there 
 was such a thing existing in the world, Ginger was really 
 and truly It. 
 
 Nevertheless, Pouncer Rogers was so unwise as to put into 
 words the unspoken thought that was in every mind when 
 he told Ginger bluntly to his face "that he'd believe it when 
 he seed it." 
 
 "Yer call me a liar," said Ginger, drawing himself up to 
 his full height of five feet six inches with remarkable dig- 
 nity. 
 
 "I said I'd believe it when I seed it," said the heroic 
 Pouncer. 
 
 "Sailor here read the letter," said Ginger, underplaying 
 from the sheer strength of his hand. "Didn't you, Sailor 
 boy? You read Dinkie Dawson's letter?" 
 
 "Yep," said the miserable Sailor. 
 
 "An' didn't he say a day's wages and railway fares both 
 ways?" 
 
 The answer of the Sailor was understood to be in the af- 
 firmative. 
 
 "First class, o* course," said Pouncer, with a deliberate 
 wink at Gogo and Twopenny. 
 
 Ginger's hand was so full that he could afford to treat 
 the observation on its merits. 
 128
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Third class, Pouncer. It was third, Sailor boy?" The 
 appeal to Sailor boy had a superb touch of condescension. 
 Pouncer would cheerfully have given a week's wages for the 
 privilege of slaying Ginger. 
 
 "Yep third," muttered the miserable one. 
 
 "Ginger Jukes," said the defiant Pouncer, "if you want 
 my 'pinion, you don't know Dinkie Dawson at all. That's 
 my 'pinion." 
 
 "Your opinion was not ast, young Pouncer." Ginger's 
 air was that of a Napoleon. "An' when anyone pleadin' 
 well asts it, Pouncer, you can give it. Perhaps you'll say 
 that Sailor didn't read Dinkie's letter?" 
 
 "So he says," sneered Pouncer. 
 
 The Sailor winced, but the cognoscenti were much too 
 busy to notice him. 
 
 "You are never goin' to call him a liar," said Ginger. 
 
 "I call him nothing." 
 
 "You had better not," said Ginger, who noticed that 
 Pouncer was drawing in his horns a bit. "/ can afford to 
 take your lip, young Pouncer Rogers. I'm used to it an* 
 you are no class, anyway, but if you call the Sailor here a 
 liar, he'll have to put it acrost you. Won't you, Sailor 
 boy?" 
 
 No reply from the Sailor. 
 
 "I call him nothing," said Pouncer, coming back a bit at 
 this rather unexpected silence on the part of the Sailor. 
 "But I simply says he pleadin' well didn't read no pleadin' 
 letter from Dinkie Dawson, that's all I simply says." 
 
 "Young Pouncer," said Ginger, "you have called the 
 Sailor a liar." He turned to his protege with the anxious 
 air of an extraordinarily polite Samaritan. "I'll hold your 
 coat, Sailor boy. You've took too much already from the 
 likes o' him. Give me your coat. You are bound to put if 
 acrost him now." 
 
 129
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Ginger looked around magisterially ; the cognoscenti con- 
 curred as one. Already the Sailor's coat was in Ginger's 
 hand. In the next moment he had rolled up the sleeves of 
 the Sailor's blue jersey, remarking as he did so, "If ever 
 I see a chap on his bended knees a-lookin' for trouble, it's 
 this here young Pouncer. Sailor boy, if you'll be ruled by 
 me, you won't half give him his gruel." 
 
 "It's more than you can, Ginger Jukes," said Pouncer, 
 with ill-timed and unworthy defiance. 
 
 Ginger was aware of that fact. In the first place, fighting 
 was not his long suit. He had too much intellect to love so 
 vulgar a pastime merely for its own sake. Not only was it 
 violent and dangerous, but it seldom meant anything in 
 particular when you were through with it. All the same, it 
 had its uses. Pouncer had been getting above himself for 
 some little time now. If he didn't soon receive a proper 
 licking from somebody, the hegemony of Cox's Piece might 
 cease to be a sinecure. 
 
 "His left's fairly useful," whispered Ginger, as he brought 
 his man up to the scratch. "But that's ail he's got. Now 
 mind you punch a hole right through him." 
 
 It was a rather disappointing scrap. But for this if 
 would be unfair to blame either Pouncer or the Sailor. The 
 fiasco was due to the unexpected, unwarranted, thoroughly 
 ill-timed, and almost unprecedented behavior of the Metro- 
 politan Police, who in the person of a certain Constable 28 
 promptly moved on the combatants while they were spar- 
 ring for position. He was obviously a young constable who 
 had not quite shaken down into his duties. 
 
 "It'll have to be a draw," announced Ginger a little 
 lower down the road, while Constable 28 stood watching 
 the ebb and flow of the cognoscenti. But it may have been 
 that Ginger's verdict was governed less by a consideration 
 of the attitude of Constable Y28, than by the fact that 
 130
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Pouncer's ring-craft appeared to have improved considerably 
 since Ginger had last seen it in action. For obvious reasons, 
 it would not do for the Sailor to meet his Waterloo just 
 then. 
 
 "Young Pouncer," said Ginger, as a final and dramatic 
 parting shot, "you've called the Sailor a liar, but all the 
 same, we can neither on us play next Saturday for the Isle 
 of Dogs Albion. An' if on Saturday mornin' you take the 
 trouble to roll up at the station about five minutes to seven, 
 you will flaming well see the reason." 
 
 "Seein' ain't always believin," said Pouncer. 
 
 In spite, however, of that unchallengeable statement, 
 Cox's Piece was well represented at the up platform to 
 London Bridge at five minutes to seven, or thereabouts, 
 on the morning of Saturday, November 3. These en- 
 thusiasts, touched with scepticism as they were, deserved 
 well of fate. It was not that they sympathized with 
 Pouncer Rogers in his ignoble point of view; they believed 
 that for the first time in its brief and rather checkered 
 history, the Isle of Dogs Albion F.C. was coming into 
 its own. 
 
 An impressive sight met the faithful who were present on 
 the up platform to London Bridge at a few minutes to 
 seven on the morning of Saturday. Then it was that Gin- 
 ger and the Sailor were seen in the booking-hall taking 
 their tickets for Blackhampton. Each carried a brand-new 
 and decidedly elegant Gladstone bag, brilliant of hue and 
 affirming its ownership in bold and clear letters; W. H. J. 
 H. H. Moreover, both Ginger and the Sailor wore a 
 brand-new cap of black and white tweed, a brand-new over- 
 coat with velvet collar, a brand-new blue suit, undoubted 
 masterpieces of Jago and Brown, 25 The Arcade, and at 
 Finsbury Circus, the whole surmounted by lustrous boots, 
 spotted necktie and spotless double collar. The effect was
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 heightened by a previous evening's haircut and a close ma- 
 tutinal shave. 
 
 Those of the faithful who had assembled on the up plat- 
 form to wish bon voyage to their club mates on their journey 
 to High Olympus were rather staggered by the sight o'f 
 them. Had the goalkeeper and the right full back of the 
 Isle of Dogs Albion been going forth to play for the first 
 team of the Villa itself, they could not have dressed the 
 part more superbly. Such stage management, its inception 
 due to the genius of Ginger, its execution, the fruit of the 
 Sailor's fabulous wealth, filled their friends with awe. The 
 unworthy doubt cast by Pouncer upon Ginger's bona fides 
 brought its own Nemesis. Pouncer was so completely 
 overthrown by the spectacular appearance on the up plat- 
 form that he sneaked out of the station via alternate doors 
 of the refreshment buffet, an illegal crossing of the main 
 line, and a final exit by the booking-hall of the down 
 platform. 
 
 Seated in a third smoker, on the way to his natal city of 
 Blackhampton, upon which he had not set eyes for seven 
 long and incredible years, the emotions of Henry Harper 
 were very complex. He was in a dream. He had been 
 made to realize by the Force seated opposite smoking Log 
 Cabin and reading Pearson '$ Weekly, that romance had 
 i come at last into a mean and hopeless life into a life which 
 had never looked for such things to happen. 
 
 The Sailor knew now the ordeal before him. He was to 
 be tried as a goalkeeper by the great and famous Black- 
 hampton Rovers, the gods of his youth. The fact was very 
 hard to believe, but according to the relentless Force to the 
 wheel of whose chariot he was tied such was the case. And 
 there was his new gear to prove it. 
 
 When they got past Luton, they had the compartment to 
 themselves. It was then that the Force, alias Ginger, laid 
 132
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Pearson's Weekly aside and admonished the Sailor out of 
 the store of his wisdom. 
 
 "First thing you bear in mind, young feller, is your 
 name's Cucumber. That's the hallmark o' class. It's the 
 coolest player what takes the kitty. Did you ever see Jock 
 Norton o' the Villa?" 
 
 The Sailor did not remember having done so. 
 
 "It don't matter," said Ginger. "This afternoon you'll 
 see me. I've formed myself on Jock Norton o' the Villa. 
 There's no better model for a young and risin' player. But 
 as I say, Cucumber's your docket. That's my first an' my 
 last word to you, young feller. It's Cucumber what'll put 
 the half Nelson on the kermittee. And, o' course, every- 
 think else yer leave to me. Understand?" 
 
 The Sailor did his best to do so. 
 
 "Everythink I tells yer, you'll do. Everythink I says, 
 you'll stand by. What I says you've said, you've pleadin' 
 well said, young feller, an' don't forget it." 
 
 The Sailor \vas not likely to forget. The look in the eyes 
 of Ginger, slightly flecked with green in a good light why 
 they should have assumed that color is part of the eternal 
 paradox sent little chills down the Sailor's spine. 
 
 They steamed into the Central Station of the famous 
 but murky city of Blackhampton at half-past twelve. The 
 Sailor was still in a dream, but of so vivid a hue that he 
 was fairly trembling with excitement. And the first per- 
 son he saw, who actually opened the door of their compart- 
 ment, was a certain grim railway policeman, who, on Henry 
 Harper's last appearance at Blackhampton Central Station, 
 had led him outside by the ear and cuffed him soundly for 
 having ventured to appear in it. The final words of this 
 stern official had been, "If ever you come in here again, you'll 
 see what I'll do." 
 
 Well, Henry Harper had come in again, and he was now 
 133
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 seeing what the policeman did. He felt subconsciously that 
 fate was laughing at this obsequious figure in uniform open- 
 ing the door of a third smoker for a new goalkeeper, who 
 had come specially from London to be tried by the Rovers. 
 
 Ginger considered it an economy of time, also the part 
 of policy, to have a light repast at the refreshment buffet. 
 While they were in the act of consuming egg sandwiches, 
 bananas, and a pint of bitter they were good to play on 
 the throng around the buffet was swollen by three or four 
 smart individuals not quite so well dressed as themselves 
 perhaps, but each carrying a handbag which if not so new 
 as theirs was very similar in shape, design, and general im- 
 portance. 
 
 There was a little commotion near the beer engine. "Play 
 up, Rovers," cried an enthusiast in a chocolate and blue neck- 
 tie. The quick ear of Ginger caught the sound; his eye 
 envisaged the cause of it. He gave the Sailor a nudge so 
 shrewd and sudden as to involve disaster to his pint of 
 bitter. 
 
 "There's Dink," he said, in a thrilling whisper. 
 
 One less than Ginger would have waited for the situa- 
 tion to evolve. He would have been modestly content for 
 the famous and redoubtable Dinkie Dawson, already an idol 
 of the public and the press, to confer notice upon those 
 whose reputations were in the womb of time. But that was 
 not Ginger's way. 
 
 "Come on, Sailor boy, I'll introjuice yer. But mind 
 Cucumber. And leave the lip ter me." 
 
 The Sailor didn't feel like being introduced to anybody 
 just then, certainly not to Dinkie Dawson, or the Prince 
 of Wales, or Lord Salisbury, or anyone of equal eminence. 
 In spite of new clothes and a Gladstone bag, he knew his 
 limit. But the relentless Force to the wheel of whose 
 chariot he was tied, the amazing Ginger, sauntered up to 
 134
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 the beer engine and struck Dinkie Dawson a blow on the 
 shoulder. 
 
 "Hullo, Ginge," said the great man. Moreover he spoke 
 with the large geniality of one who has really arrived. 
 
 "Hullo, Dink." Cucumber was not the word for Gin- 
 ger. "Where are ye playin'?" 
 
 "At Durbee agen the Countee." 
 
 "Mind yer put it acrost 'em," said Ginger, in the ready 
 and agreeable tone of the man of the world. "Let me intro- 
 juice Mr. Enery Arper. Mr. Dinkie Dawson." 
 
 " 'Ow do," said Dinkie. But it was not the tone he had 
 used to Ginger. There was inquiry, condescension, keep- 
 your-distance and quite a lot of other things in it. Ginger, 
 whom Dinkie knew and liked, had described Mr. Enery 
 Arper as a Nonesuch, but Dinkie, who was himself a None- 
 such of a very authentic breed, was not all inclined to make 
 concessions to a Nonesuch in embryo. 
 
 Mr. Harper's shyness was so intense that it might easily 
 have been mistaken for Lift. But Ginger, wary and alert, 
 stepped into the breach with his accustomed gallantry. 
 
 "I told yer in my letter he had been a sailor," whispered 
 Ginger in the great man's ear. "He's sailed eight years 
 afore the mast. Three times wrecked. Seed the serpent. 
 Gee, what that chap's done an' seen it fair makes you 
 dizzy. Not that you would think it to look at him, would 
 yer?" 
 
 "No, I wouldn't," said Dinkie, who measured men by 
 one standard only. "But what about his goalkeeping? Can 
 he keep goal or can't he? There's a big chance for a chap 
 as can really keep goal. But he must be class." 
 
 "He's class," said Ginger coolly. 
 
 "Can he clear well?" 
 
 "He's a daisy, I tell yer." 
 
 "That's got to be seen," said Dinkie. "But he looks green 
 135
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 to me. An' I tell you this, Ginger Jukes, it's not a bit o' 
 use anybody trying to lumber a green un on to a club like 
 the Rovers." 
 
 "I know that," said Ginger urbanely. "But you'll see 
 if he keeps his thatch. By the way, Dink, you didn't say in 
 your letter whether the Rovers had a vacancy for a right 
 full back." 
 
 "We've got Mullins and Pretyman, the best pair o' backs 
 in England." 
 
 Ginger knew that perfectly well, but he did not allow it 
 to defeat him. 
 
 "There's as good fish in the sea as ever come out of it," 
 said he. 
 
 "I don't know about that," said Dinkie Dawson coldly. 
 
 It was clear that Ginger Jukes did not realize where he 
 was or what he was up against. 
 
 GINGER and the Sailor drove to the ground of the 
 Blackhampton Rovers on the roof of a two-horse 
 bus. It was a long way from the Central Station, 
 but they had time in hand; the match did not begin until 
 half-past two, and it was only a little after one at present. 
 As together they made what both felt to be as fateful a 
 journey as they would ever take in the whole course of 
 their lives, their emotions were many and conflicting. 
 
 "There y'are, young feller." Ginger pointed to a hoard- 
 ing on which a chocolate and blue poster was displayed. In 
 spite of his religion of Cucumber, the thrill in his voice 
 was perceptible. "There's a bill of the match." 
 
 "Who are we p-playin'?" stammered the Sailor, half 
 136
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 choked by a sudden rush of emotion that threatened to 
 unman him. 
 
 "Can't yer read?" 
 
 "No," gasped the Sailor. 
 
 "No?" gasped Ginger. 
 
 "I I mean, I can't see very well." 
 
 "Can't see!" 
 
 Ginger nearly fell off the bus. 
 
 "Not at this distance, I I mean." 
 
 "Blymy." For a moment Ginger was done. Then he 
 said with a ferocity ruthless and terrible, "Young feller, 
 you've pleadin' well got to see this afternoon. You've got 
 to keep yer eyes skinned or ... or I'll scrag yer. Under- 
 stand ? If you let me down or you let Dinkie make a mark 
 on us, you'll see what I'll do." There was something deadly 
 now in the freckled skin and the green eyes. Ginger might 
 have been a large reptile from the Island of San Pedro. 
 
 The Sailor felt horribly nervous, and the demeanor of 
 Ginger did not console him. The fact was, Ginger was 
 horribly nervous too. It was the moment of his life, the 
 hour to which vaulting ambition had long looked forward. 
 Before this damp, dismal November afternoon was three 
 hours older would be decided the one really pregnant prob- 
 lem of Ginger's universe, namely and to wit, could he con- 
 trive to get his foot on the ladder that leads to fame and 
 fortune? If courage and resolution and an insight into 
 the ways of men could bring this thing to pass there was 
 reason for Ginger to be of good faith. But and the But 
 was a big one none knew better than Ginger that many 
 are called and few are chosen, that the world is full of 
 gifted and ambitious people who have never quite man- 
 aged to "deliver the goods," that life is hell for the under 
 dog, and that it is given to no man to measure the axact 
 distance between the cup and the lip. 
 137
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 The ground of the Blackhampton Rovers Football Club 
 came into view as the bus dived into a muddy and narrow 
 lane. It then crossed the bridge of the West Norton and 
 Bagsworth canal, and there before the thrilled eyes of the 
 Sailor was the faded flag of chocolate and blue flying over 
 the enormous corrugated iron roof of the grand stand. But 
 there were not many people about at present. It was not 
 yet two o'clock, moreover the spectators were likely to be 
 few, so dismal was the afternoon, and of such little im- 
 portance the match, which was a mere affair of the second 
 team. 
 
 Ginger, with all his formidable courage, was devoutly 
 thankful that such was the case. It was well that the pres- 
 tige of the Blackhampton Rovers was not at stake. For 
 he knew that he was taking a terrible risk. The Sailor was 
 young and untried, his experience of the game was slight, 
 and had been gained in poor company. Even the second 
 team of the august Blackhampton Rovers was quite a dif- 
 ferent matter from the first team of the Isle of Dogs Al- 
 bion. They were up against class and had better look out! 
 
 This was the thought in Ginger's mind as he entered the 
 ground of the famous club, with the Sailor at his heels, and 
 haughtily said, "Player," in response to a demand for 
 entrance money on the part of the man at the gate. Ginger 
 was a little overawed by his surroundings already in spite 
 of a fixed determination not to be overawed by anything. 
 
 As for the Sailor, following upon the heels of Ginger and 
 speaking not a word, he was as one in a dream. Yes, this 
 was the ground of the Rovers right enough. There was the 
 flag over the pavilion. God in heaven, what things he had 
 seen, what things he had known since he looked on it last! 
 Somehow the sight of that torn and faded banner of choco- 
 late and blue brought a sudden gush of tears to his eyes. 
 And in a queer way, he felt a better man for shedding them. 
 138
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 There at the end of the ground by the farther goal, in 
 the shadow of the legend, Blackhampton Empire Twice 
 Nightly, painted in immense letters on a giant hoarding, 
 was the tree out of which young Arris fell and was pinched 
 by a rozzer on the never-to-be-forgotten day when the Villa 
 came to play the Rovers in that immortal cup tie it had 
 been the glory of his youth to witness. And now . . . and 
 now! It was too much! Henry Harper could not believe 
 that he was about to wear the chocolate and blue himself, 
 that he was about to tread the turf of this historic field 
 which had not so much as one blade of grass upon it. 
 
 "Young feller." The face of Ginger was pale, his voice 
 was hoarse. "Don't forget what I've told yer. Remember 
 Cucumber. Stick tight to your thatch. There's a lot at 
 stake for both on us. This has got to mean two quid a week 
 for you and me." 
 
 The Sailor did not reply. But an odd look came into his 
 deep eyes. Could Ginger have read them, and it was well 
 he could not, those eyes would have accused him of sacri- 
 lege. It was not with thoughts like these that Henry 
 Harper defiled the classic battleground, the sacred earth 
 of High Olympus. 
 
 XI 
 
 IN the Rovers' dressing-room the reception of Ginger 
 and the Sailor was cool. Their look of newness, of 
 their bags and overcoats in particular, at once aroused 
 feelings of hostility. They implied greenness and swank; 
 and in athletic circles these carry heavy penalties. Green- 
 ness is a grave misdemeanor, swank a deadly sin. For- 
 tunately Ginger was far too wise to talk. He contented 
 himself with a civil passing of the time of day. One less a 
 warrior might have been a little cowed by the glances at 
 10 139
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 his bag and his overcoat. But Ginger was not. He did 
 not care two straws for the opinion of his fellow hirelings. 
 It was his business to impress the club committee. 
 
 As for the Sailor, he was not in a condition to under- 
 stand what was taking place around him. Cucumber might 
 be his name, but his brain was like a ball of fire. 
 
 One of the immortal chocolate and blue shirts was handed 
 to him, but when the time came to put it on he stood hold- 
 ing it in his hand. 
 
 "Into it, 3'er fool," said his mentor, in a fierce whisper. 
 It would not be wise to attract by a display of eccentricity 
 the notice of nine pairs of eyes. 
 
 With a start, the Sailor came back to the present and 
 thrust his head into the shirt. His thoughts were witH 
 young Arris. He, too, had had a dream of playing for the 
 Rovers. If only young Arris could see him now! 
 
 The "gate" was small, the afternoon unpleasant, the 
 match by no means a good one. The result did not matter 
 to the Rovers, whose reputation was known wherever foot- 
 ball was played. In the view of the ruling powers of that 
 old and famous club, who sat in the center of the grand- 
 stand, the object of this rather scratch game was not glory 
 but the discovery of new talent. But small as the audience 
 was, it contained a personage of vast consequence, who sa 
 like Olympian Zeus enthroned on high with his satellites 
 around him. 
 
 He was a majestic figure whose importance could be seen 
 at a glance. His expansive fur coat, his superb contour, 
 his spats, his red face, the flower in his buttonhole, and the 
 large cigar with a band round it stuck in the side of his 
 mouth, were a guaranty of status, apart from any con- 
 sideration of supreme capacity. Mr. Augustus Higginbot- 
 tom was the chairman of the club. 
 
 "Who have we got keepin' goal?" said Olympian Zeus, 
 140
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 as he fixed a pair of gold-rimmed eyeglasses on his nose and" 
 looked at his card. "Arper, I see. Who the 'ell's Arper ?" 
 
 "On trial, Gus." Three or four anxiously officious 
 satellites hastened to enlighten the chairman. 
 
 "I rather like the look o' Arper." It was as Plato might 
 have spoken had he ever worn a fur coat and had a large 
 cigar with a band round it tucked in the side of his mouth, 
 and had he placed his services at the disposal of the com- 
 mittee of the Blackhampton Rovers Football Club in order 
 to enable it to distinguish the false from the true. 
 
 "Make and shape there," said Mr. Higginbottom. 
 "Light on his pins. Get's down to the ball." 
 
 "Oh, well stopped, young un!" shouted an adventurous 
 satellite, in order that an official decree might be promul- 
 gated to the general public. 
 
 It was known at once round the ground that the critics 
 had got their eyes on the new goalkeeper. 
 
 "I've heard say, Gus," said the adventurous one, "that 
 this youth well saved, my lad! is a sailor." 
 
 "Sailor is he?" Mr. Higginbottom was so much im- 
 pressed by the information that he began to chew the end 
 of his cigar. "Ops about, don't he. I tell you what, Al- 
 bert" six satellites craned to catch the chairman's ukase 
 "I like the cut o' the Sailor." 
 
 "Played, young un," cried the grandstand. 
 
 "Albert," said the chairman, "who's that cab oss?" 
 
 "The right full back, Gus?" 
 
 "Him I mean. He's no use." The chairman glanced 
 augustly at his card. "Jukes, I see. Who the 'ell's Jukes ?" 
 
 "On trial," said Mr. Satellite Albert. "But I don't 
 altogether agree with you there, Gus." Albert differed 
 deferentially from the chairman. "There's nothing like a 
 touch o' Ginger." 
 
 "I grant you," said the chairman. "But the goods has 
 141
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 to be there as well. Ginger's no class. Moves like a height- 
 year-old with the staggers." 
 
 "Wake up, Jukes." The official decree was promulgated 
 from the grandstand. 
 
 It was known at once round the ground that it was all 
 up with Jukes. 
 
 "Chrysanthemum Top can't play for rock cakes and 
 Everton toffee," was the opinion of the proletariat in the 
 sixpenny stand. 
 
 "Ginger's no class," said Mr. Augustus Higginbottom. 
 "There's no class about Ginger." 
 
 "Pull up your socks, Jukes," the grandstand exhorted 
 him. 
 
 Ginger knew already, without any official intimation, that 
 he was being outplayed. Do as he would he did not seem 
 able to mobilize quickly enough to stop these swift and 
 skillful forwards. He had never met anything like them 
 on Cox's Piece. Ginger knew already, without any help 
 from the grandstand, that he was out of it. He was doing 
 his level best, he was doing it doggedly with set teeth, 
 but the truth was he felt like a carthorse compared with 
 these forwards of the enemy who were racehorses one and 
 all. 
 
 But the Sailor . . . the Sailor was magnificent so far. 
 He had stopped every shot, and two at least only a goal- 
 keeper touched with the divine fire could have parried. 
 Half time was signaled, and in spite of the inefficiency of 
 the right full back, the enemy had yet to score a goal. 
 
 As the players walked off the field to refit for the second 
 half, a special cheer was raised for young Harper. 
 
 "Played, me lad." It was the voice of the chairman 
 of the club from the center of the grandstand. 
 
 "Played, me lad." Three hundred throats echoed the 
 cry. Zeus himself had spoken. 
 142
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 A ragged urchin, who had paid his threepence with the 
 best of them and had therefore a right to express his opin- 
 ion in a public manner, looked up into the sweating face 
 and the haggard eyes of Ginger as he walked off the ground. 
 "Go 'ome, Ginger. Yer can't play for nuts. Yer no class." 
 
 Like a sick gladiator, Ginger staggered into the dressing- 
 room, but in his eyes was defiance of fate and not despair 
 of it. 
 
 "Mate," he said, in a hollow voice to the attendant, 
 "fetch me six pennorth o' brandy." 
 
 He dipped his head into a basin of cold water and then 
 sat in a truculent silence. He did not so much as glance at 
 the Sailor, who had the rest of the team around him. 
 Where did Harper come from? What club did he play 
 for? Was it true that he had been a sailor? 
 
 Henry Harper was only able to answer these questions 
 very shyly and imperfectly. He was in a dream. He 
 could hardly realize where he was or what he was doing. 
 
 When they returned to the field of play, the goalkeeper, 
 already a favorite, was given a little private cheer. But 
 the Sailor heard it not; he was dreaming, dreaming, walk- 
 ing on air. 
 
 "Buck up, Ginger," piped the shrill urchin, as the tense 
 Sand heroic figure of that warrior came on the field last of 
 'all. But the grim eyes and the set face were not in need 
 of admonition. Ginger was prepared to do or die. 
 
 "Cab Oss can use his weight," said the All Highest. 
 
 "First good thing he's done," said Mr. Satellite Albert. 
 
 The 'right full back, it seemed, had charged like a tiger 
 at the center forward of the enemy and had laid him low. 
 
 "Good on yer, Ginger," cried the poletariat. 
 
 After this episode, the game grew rough. And this was 
 in Ginger's favor. Outclassed he might be in pace and 
 skill, but no human soul could outclass Ginger in sheer 
 143
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 fighting quality when his back was to the wall. Before 
 long the stricken lay around him. 
 
 "It isn't footba'," said Mr. Augustus Higginbottom. 
 "You can't call it footba', but it's the right game to play 
 under the circumstances." 
 
 It began to seem that the enemy would never score the 
 goal it so much desired. The goalkeeper kept up his form 
 in quite a marvelous way, parrying shot after shot of every 
 range and pace from all points of the compass. He was a 
 man inspired. And the right full back was truly terrible 
 now. He had ceased to trouble about the ball, but wher- 
 ever he saw a red-shirted adversary he brought him down 
 and fell on him. Ginger did not achieve any particular feat 
 of arms, but his moral effect was considerable. 
 
 The shades of night were falling, but not a single goal 
 had been scored by either party. The goalkeeper grew more 
 and more wonderful, the right full back was more like a 
 lion than ever. 
 
 "Blame my cats," said Mr. Augustus Higginbottom, 
 "that Ginger's mustard. But they'll never stan' him in a 
 League match. What do you say, Davis?" 
 
 Mr. Davis, a small buttoned-up man in a knitted com- 
 forter and a brown bowler hat, had given far fewer opin- 
 ions than his peers. He was a man of deeds. He had 
 played for England v. Scotland in his distinguished youth, 
 but no one would have guessed it to look at him. 
 
 "Quite agree, Gus," said Mr. Davis, in a measured tone. 
 "Football is not a game for Ginger. Not the man we are 
 looking for. But that goalkeeper . . ." 
 
 "That's all right, Davis," said Mr. Augustus Higgin- 
 bottom, "we are going to make no mistake about him." 
 
 Night fell, the referee blew his whistle, the match was at 
 an end, and still not a goal had been scored. Utterly 
 weary, covered with mud from head to heel, the twenty- 
 144
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 two players trooped back to the dressing-room. They flung 
 off the reeking garments of battle and fought for the icy 
 shower bath, the heroic Ginger still the foremost in the fray. 
 "Look slippy into yer duds, young feller," he breathed 
 hoarsely in the ear of the Sailor. "We've pleadin' well got 
 to catch that kermittee afore it goes." 
 
 XII 
 
 GINGER might have spared himself all anxiety in 
 regard to the "kermittee." The Great General 
 Staff had made up its mind in the matter already. 
 The directors would like to see Harper in the committee 
 room before he went. 
 
 "What abaht me?" said Ginger. 
 
 "It's Harper they want to see," said their emissary. 
 "They don't want to see no one else." 
 
 "Oh, don't they!" was Ginger's eloquent comment to 
 himself. 
 
 "Ready, Harper?" said the emissary, with the air of a 
 law-giver. "I'll show you the way." 
 
 "Come on, Sailor boy," said Ginger, with his affectionate 
 avuncular air, as he gave a final touch, aided by a hairbrush 
 and a looking-glass, to his auburn locks w T hich he wore in 
 the form of a fringe on his forehead. 
 
 "Jukes, there's your expenses," said the emissary rather 
 haughtily, as he handed Ginger a sovereign. "The direc- 
 tors don't require to see you." 
 
 "I'd like to see them," said the imperturbable Ginger. 
 
 "Their time is valuable." 
 
 "So's mine," said Ginger. "Come on, Sailor boy." 
 
 The chairman, now enthroned in the committee room, 
 had short shrift for Ginger. 
 
 H5
 
 THE "SAILOR 
 
 "Jukes," he said with brutal directness, as he chewed the 
 end of his cigar, "\ve didn't send for you. You are not the 
 Rovers' sort and never will be. You are a trier an' all 
 that, you are a good plucked un, but the Rovers is only 
 out for one thing, an' that's class." 
 
 This oration was extremely well delivered, cigar in 
 mouth, yet the committee seemed to be more impressed by 
 it than Ginger himself. 
 
 "That's right, Gus," said Mr. Satellite Albert. "Those 
 are our views." 
 
 Mr. Augustus Higginbottom might have expressed the 
 views of the committee, but it did not appear that they 
 were the views of Mr. W. H. Jukes. That warrior stood, 
 tweed cap in hand, the Sailor by his side, as though they 
 did not in any way concern him. 
 
 "You understand, Jukes?" said the chairman. 
 
 No reply. 
 
 "Arper here is the man we sent for. Arper" the im- 
 pressiveness of Mr. Higginbottom was very carefully cal- 
 culated "you've no polish, me lad, you lack experience, 
 you are young, you've got to grow and you've got to learn, 
 but you might make a goalkeeper if you was took in hand 
 by the Rovers. Understand me, Arper," the chairman 
 raised an eloquent forefinger "I say ye might if you was . 
 took in hand an' trained by a club o' the class o' the Rovers. 
 But you've a long way to go. Do you understand, me lad?" 
 
 "Yes, mister," said the Sailor humbly. 
 
 The "mister" jarred horribly upon the sensitive ear of 
 Mr. W. H. Jukes, who whispered, "Call him 'sir/ yer 
 fool." 
 
 "Very well, then," proceeded Mr. Augustus Higgin- 
 bottom, "now we'll come to business. My feller directors" 
 the chairman waved a magniloquent hand "agrees with 
 me that the Rovers can offer you a pound a week because 
 146
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 you are promisin', although not justified as you are at pres- 
 ent. Now what do you say?" 
 
 "Nothin' doin','' said Mr. W. H. Jukes, before the goal- 
 keeper could say anything. "Come on, Sailor boy. We are 
 wastin' our time. We'll be gettin' to the station." 
 
 "My remarks, Jukes, was not addressed to you," said 
 the chairman with awful dignity. "The directors has no 
 use for your services, as I thought I 'ad made clear." 
 
 "I'm sorry, sir," said Ginger, with a considered polite- 
 ness that seemed rather to surprise the committee. "Come 
 on, Sailor. A quid a week! I think we can do better nor 
 that." 
 
 "One moment," said Mr. Augustus Higginbottom. 
 There was a hurried consultation while Ginger and the 
 goalkeeper began to move to the door. "One moment, 
 Arper." 
 
 Ginger, drawing the Sailor after him, returned with' 
 every sign of reluctance to the middle of the room. 
 
 "Jukes," said the chairman, "you have nothing to do 
 with this matter, anyway." 
 
 "No, sir," said Ginger, with a deference he was very far 
 from feeling. 
 
 "You quite understand that, Jukes?" 
 ^ "Yes, sir," said Ginger, with formidable politeness. 
 
 "Very good. Now, Arper, the directors is prepared to 
 rise to twenty-five shillings a week, an' that's their limit." 
 
 "I'm sorry, gentlemen," said Ginger, "but twenty-five 
 bob a week is not a bit o' use to either on us. We like the 
 town what we've seen on it, but two pound a week's our 
 minimum. It's only wastin' time to talk of less. If we 
 ain't worth two pound a week to the Blackhampton Rovers, 
 I dessey we'll be worth it to the Otspur or the Villa. Come 
 on, Sailor. We're only wastin' our time, boy." 
 
 This carefully delivered ultimatum made quite a sensa- 
 147
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 tion. There was not one of the committee who would 
 not cheerfully have slain Mr. W. H. Jukes. But they 
 wanted that goalkeeper very badly. Moreover, the mention 
 of the Hotspur and the Villa did not lessen this desire. 
 
 "One moment, Jukes." 
 
 A further consultation followed. This matter called for 
 very masterful and, at the same time, very delicate handling. 
 
 Mr. Augustus Higginbottom went to the length of re- 
 moving his cigar from the corner of his mouth. 
 
 "See here, Jukes," said he, "it's not you we want, it's 
 the goalkeeper. Now, Arper, I am empowered by my feller 
 directors to offer you two pound a week with a rise next 
 year if you turn out satisfactory." 
 
 "That's more like it," said Ginger coolly. "Two pound 
 a week and a rise next year. What do you say, Sailor boy? 
 Or do you think it would be better to see the Villa?" 
 
 It was as much as the chairman could do to keep from 
 pitching Jukes out of the room. His cheek was amazing, 
 but if this course was taken, it was clear that Harper would 
 not adorn his person with a chocolate and blue shirt. 
 
 The unlucky fact was that the goalkeeper and the right 
 full back had only one mind between them. And that mind 
 was not in the possession of the goalkeeper. 
 
 "We've allus played together," said Ginger, "and we 
 allus shall. I've taught him all he knows haven't I, Sailor 
 boy?" 
 
 "Yep," said the Sailor, coming humbly into the conversa- 
 tion for the first time. 
 
 "We've allus played for the same club, we lodge to- 
 gether, we work together, we are pals in everythink ain't 
 we, Sailor boy?" 
 
 "Yep," said the Sailor. 
 
 "And if you don't want us it's all the same to us ain't 
 it, Sailor boy?" 
 
 148
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Yep," said the Sailor. 
 
 There followed a final consultation between the chair- 
 man of the club and his fellow committee-men. But only 
 one conclusion to the matter was possible. The Black- 
 hampton Rovers must either accept 'Mr. W. H. Jukes with 
 all his limitations, or lose the type of goalkeeper they had 
 been seeking up and down the land for many a year. 
 
 XIII 
 
 TO the Sailor, the visit to Blackhampton was a fairy 
 tale. At first, he could not realize that he had worn 
 the chocolate and blue, and had performed wonder- 
 ful deeds at the instance of a power beyond himself. As 
 for the sequel, involving a farewell to the wharf of Ant- 
 cliff and Jackson, Limited, and a triumphal return to his 
 natal city as a salaried player of the Rovers, even when 
 this had really happened, it was very hard to believe. 
 
 Ginger took the credit. And if he had not had a talent 
 for affairs these things could not have come about. It was 
 entirely due to him that Henry Harper learned to play 
 football, and had he not mastered the art, it is unlikely that 
 he would ever have found the key to his life. 
 
 The Sailor was a simple, modest soul. He felt the sudden 
 turn of fortune's wheel was due to no grace of his own. 
 From that amazing hour when certain documents were 
 signed and Henry Harper, who had suffered terrible things 
 to gain a few dollars a month, began to draw a salary of 
 two pounds a week with surprisingly little to do in order 
 to earn it, his devotion to Ginger became almost that of a 
 dog for its master. 
 
 They both had their feet on the ladder now, if ever two 
 young men had. It might be luck, it might be pluck, it 
 149
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 might be a combination of anything you chose to call it, but 
 there it was; two untried men had imposed their per- 
 sonalities upon some of the shrewdest judges of football 
 in the United Kingdom. The Sailor had shown genius on 
 the field ; Ginger had shown genius of a kind more valuable. 
 
 On the Monday week following their triumph, they 
 invaded Blackhampton again. This time they were accom- 
 panied not merely by their Gladstone bags and their velvet- 
 collared overcoats, but they came with the whole of their 
 worldly goods. 
 
 They obtained "they" meaning Ginger some quite first- 
 rate lodgings in Newcastle Street, near the canal. These had 
 been recommended by Dinkie Dawson, who lodged in the 
 next street but two. The charges of the new landlady, 
 Miss Gwladys Foldal, were much higher than those of Mrs. 
 Sparks, but the accommodation was Class compared to 
 Paradise Alley. As Ginger informed the Sailor, socially 
 they had taken a big step up. 
 
 For example, Miss Foldal herself was, in Ginger's opin- 
 ion, far more a woman of the world than Mrs. Sparks. 
 Her hair was golden, it was always amazingly curled about 
 tea time, when she had newly powdered her nose; she main- 
 tained a "slavey" and did little of the housework herself, 
 apparently never soiling her well-kept hands with any- 
 thing menial; also she had an undoubted gift of conversa- 
 tion, could play the piano, and if much entreated would 
 lift occasionally an agreeable voice in song; in a word, 
 Miss Foldal was a lady versed in the enchantments of good 
 society. 
 
 The Sailor was quite overawed at first by Miss Foldal. 
 Always very responsive to the impact of her sex, a word 
 or a look from the least of its members was enough to 
 embarrass him. Miss Foldal, with her tempered brilliancy 
 and her matured charm, impressed him greatly. 
 ISO
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Even Ginger, who was so cynical in regard to ladies in 
 general and landladies in particular, was inclined to approve 
 her. This was a great concession on Ginger's part, be- 
 cause up till then there were only two persons in the 
 universe whom Ginger did approve, one being himself, 
 whom he approved wholeheartedly, the other being Dinkie 
 Dawson, whom he accepted with reservations. 
 
 Ginger and the Sailor soon settled down in their new 
 quarters. They were well received by their fellow players. 
 They must not look beyond the second team at present, so 
 august was the circle in which they now moved, but Harper 
 was "the goods" undoubtedly; one of these days the world 
 would hear of him; while as for Jukes, although without 
 genius as a player he was such a trier that he was bound to 
 improve. Indeed, he began to improve in every match in 
 which he appeared in this exalted company. His time was 
 not yet, but the directors of the club, resentful as they 
 were of the coup that Ginger had played, shrewdly foresaw 
 that a man of such will and determination might one day 
 prove a sound investment. 
 
 These were golden days for the Sailor. The perils and 
 the hardships aboard the Margaret Carey, the titanic fights 
 with nature, the ceaseless struggles on the yards of that 
 crazy vessel in order to save himself from being dashed to 
 pieces on the deck below, had been such a training for his 
 present life as nothing else could have been. 
 
 It was now for the first time that Henry Harper began 
 to envisage that queer thing, Himself. He was never at any 
 period an egotist in a narrow way. Fate had mercilessly 
 flogged a sense Ot proportion into him at the threshold of 
 his life; whatever the future had in store he would never 
 be able to forget that man himself is a creature of strange, 
 terrible, and tragic destiny. As soon as a little prosperity 
 came to him, he began to develop. The respect of others
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 for the accidental prowess he wore so unassumingly, good 
 food, regular habits, a sense of security, did much for Henry 
 Harper in this critical phase of his fortunes. 
 
 First he learned to take a pride in his body. That was a 
 very simple ethic of the great religion to be revealed to him. 
 He was quick to see that he was one of a company of highly 
 trained athletes whom nature had endowed nobly. To- 
 gether with his fellow players, he was exercised with as 
 much care as if he had been a racehorse. He was bathed 
 and massaged, groomed and tended; such a sense of physi- 
 cal well-being came to him that he could not help growing 
 in grace and beauty, in strength and freedom of mind and 
 soul. 
 
 After several weeks of this new and wonderful life there 
 was still a dark secret that continued to haunt the Sailor. 
 He could neither read nor write, and he was living in a 
 world in which these accomplishments were taken for 
 granted. He had to conceal the fact as best he could. 
 None must know, but a means would have to be found of 
 overcoming this stigma. 
 
 He dared not speak of it to Ginger, or to Miss Foldal 
 either, much as he liked and respected her. He remem- 
 bered the face of Mrs. Sparks. But after giving much 
 thought to the matter, he made cautious inquiries, and then 
 one morning it suddenly occurred to him that he was a 
 fool. Here was Henry Harper in his native city of Black- 
 hampton, certain parts of which he knew like the back of 
 his hand, and yet he had forgotten the night school in 
 Driver's Lane that Cocky Footit and Leary Jeacock went 
 to and never did any good afterwards. 
 
 The thought hit the Sailor hard as he was seated at hie 
 
 princely breakfast of eggs and bacon, very choicely fried, 
 
 and such a cup of coffee as any man might have envied 
 
 him. He remembered how seven years ago, in the Cocky 
 
 152
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Footit and Leary Jeacock days, he simply daren't go home 
 at night unless he had sold a certain number of Evening 
 Stars. And what a home it was for any boy to go to! 
 
 In spite of the eggs and bacon and the warm fire and 
 Ginger seated opposite with the Athletic News propped 
 against the coffee pot, a shudder crept through Henry 
 Harper. He regretted bitterly that he should have allowed 
 his thoughts to stray. But how could they go back to 
 Cocky Footit and Leary Jeacock and the night school they 
 attended in Driver's Lane, without taking a leap unbidden 
 to that other lane which ran level with Driver's, with the 
 rag and bone yard and the iron gates where dwelt Auntie 
 and her cart whip, the only home at that time he had 
 known ? 
 
 He couldn't help shuddering at the picture in his mind. 
 Where was Auntie now ? How would she look to one who 
 had sailed before the mast over all the oceans of the world ? 
 
 The subject of Auntie had a morbid fascination. It 
 held him as completely as the night school in Driver's Lane. 
 The truth was, it was impossible to recall the one without 
 envisaging the other. 
 
 As soon as he had finished breakfast, he put on the over- 
 coat \vith the velvet collar and the smart tweed cap, stepped 
 into Newcastle Street and began to wander across the canal 
 bridge. Then he turned to the right through Clover Street, 
 crossed the tram lines, passed the Crown and Cushion, his 
 favorite public-house of yore, where he had listened many 
 an evening to the music and singing that floated through 
 the swing doors, with always a half formed thought at the 
 back of his mind which he dared not face. As of old, he 
 stood to listen, but there was no music now, for it was only 
 ten o'clock in the morning, and it didn't begin until seven 
 at night. 
 
 He was not afraid of the life of seven years ago. As he 
 153
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 stood outside the Crown and Cushion that was the idea 
 which exalted him. Henry Harper was not obliged to 
 meet Auntie, but was going to do so out of curiosity, and 
 because he owed it to himself to prove that he no longer 
 went in fear of her. 
 
 That might be so, but as he passed through the old 
 familiar streets and alleys, with bareheaded Aunties stand- 
 ing arms akimbo in conversation with the neighbors, while 
 many a Henry Harper sprawled half naked in the gutter, 
 his courage almost failed. The slums of Blackhampton 
 had changed less than he in seven years. 
 
 Yes, this was Crow's Yard. And there at the door of 
 No. I, as of yore, was Mother Crow, toothless and yellow, 
 unspeakably foul of word and aspect, whose man often 
 threatened to swing for her and finally swung for another. 
 Henry Harper stole swiftly through Crow's Yard, fearing 
 at every step that he would be recognized. 
 
 With a thudding heart, he came into Wright's Lane. It 
 was like a horrible dream ; he nearly turned and ran. What 
 if Auntie was still there? He had just seen Mother Crow 
 and Meg Baker and Cock-eyed Polly and others of her 
 circle. Well, if she was . . . ? 
 
 The beating of his heart would not let him meet the 
 question. He ought not to have come. All the same, there 
 was nothing to be afraid of now. 
 
 No, there was nothing to be. ... Again he nearly 
 turned and ran. The iron gates were before him. There 
 were the piles of stinking bones, old newspapers, foul rags, 
 sc:ap iron, and all sorts of odds and ends. And there was 
 the broken-down handcart he had trundled so often through 
 the mud. The wheels were still on it, but they looked like 
 new ones. And there on the wall of the shed was the nail. 
 
 A sick thrill passed through Henry Harper. He couldn't 
 make out in the thick November halflight whether on 
 154
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 that nail there was really what he thought there was. A 
 wave of curiosity forced him to enter the yard. The whip 
 was hanging there as usual. The heavy handle bound with 
 strips of brass shone through the gloom. The sight of it 
 seemed again to hold him in a thrall of terror. As if it 
 were a nightmare he fought to throw it off. He had 
 been a sailor; he was the goalkeeper for the Blackhampton 
 Rovers ; he was earning two pounds a week ; he had a velvet 
 collar to his overcoat; there was no need to be afraid of ... 
 
 "Now, young man?" 
 
 A thick, wheezy grunt came out of the inner murk of the 
 yard and sent a chill down the spine of Henry Harper. 
 
 "What can I do for yer?" 
 
 Auntie, cheerfully alcoholic as ever, stood before him in 
 all her shapeless obscenity. She stood as of old, exuding gin 
 and humor and latent savagery. She had changed so little 
 that he felt he had not changed either. At first he could 
 not believe that she did not recognize him. 
 
 Auntie stood eyeing him with disfavor. The good clothes, 
 the clean collar, the polished boots told against him heavily. 
 Most probably a detective. 
 
 "What do you want for that, missus?" He pointed to 
 the nail. 
 
 "Not for sale." The light he had seen so often sprang 
 to her eyes. "You can have anythink else. Scrap iron, 
 rags and bones, waste paper, bedsteads, but yer can't have 
 that" And Auntie looked at him, wheezing humorously 
 at the idea of anyone wanting to buy such an article. Sud- 
 denly Henry Harper met again the eyes of Medusa in their 
 depth and power. 
 
 At once he knew why he had stayed those long years 
 
 under her roof. It was not merely that he had nowhere 
 
 else to go. There was a living devil in the soul of Auntie 
 
 and it was far stronger than anything at present in the soul 
 
 11 155
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 of Henry Harper. Already he could feel the old helpless 
 terror striking into him again. He was forgetting that 
 he had been a sailor, he was forgetting the Blackhampton 
 Rovers, he was forgetting his two pounds a week. . . . 
 
 "Well, missus, if yer won't, yer won't," he said, with' 
 a mighty effort of the will. 
 
 Auntie laughed her old rich note of genial defiance, as if 
 an affection for a thing of little value and less use must be 
 defended. As she did so, a miserable cur sneaked out 
 through the open door of the house beyond the archway. 
 She turned to it humorously. 
 
 "I thought I told you to keep in." 
 
 The dog cast a look at her and sneaked in again. 
 
 "Mornin', missus." 
 
 "Mornin', young man. Sorry I can't oblige yer." It 
 was the old note of affability that always endeared her to 
 the neighbors. 
 
 But it was not of Auntie that Henry Harper was think- 
 ing when he got into Wright's Lane. It was of the dog. 
 In the eyes of that animal he had seen his former self. 
 
 XIV 
 
 IT had been Henry Harper's intention to go on across 
 the Lammas and make inquiries about the night school. 
 But his courage suddenly failed. As soon as he got 
 into Wright's Lane, he felt that for one day at least he had 
 seen enough of the haunts of his youth. 
 
 As he stood at the corner, trying to make up his mind 
 what to do, an intense longing for Newcastle Street came 
 upon him. It seemed wiser to postpone the night school 
 until the afternoon. 
 
 He had not expected to find the other side of the canal 
 156
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 quite so bad as it had proved to be. It seemed ages away 
 in point of experience. There was no place for good 
 clothes, a clean collar, and polished boots in the region the 
 other side of the canal. It was very unfortunate that the 
 night school lay in the middle of that area. 
 
 Henry Harper was in an unhappy frame of mind when 
 he sat down to dinner with Ginger at one o'clock. A very 
 bad aura enveloped him. The sight of Auntie in her lair 
 would take him some little time to overcome. Then the 
 sense of failure was unpleasant. It was unworthy of a 
 sailor to have shirked his job. Every day made it more 
 necessary for something to be done. His pretence of under- 
 standing the newspapers when he could hardly read a word 
 was telling against him with Ginger. His contribution to 
 the after-supper conversation was so feeble, as a rule, that 
 Ginger was almost afraid "he was not all there." 
 
 However, he would inquire about the night school that 
 afternoon. The matter was so urgent that he could have 
 no peace until he had moved in it. But fate, having taken 
 his measure, began to marshal silent invisible forces. 
 
 To begin with the forces were silent enough, yet they 
 were not exactly invisible. A little after three, while the 
 Sailor, still in the Valley of Decision, was looking into the 
 fire, wondering whether it was possible after all to postpone 
 the task until the following morning w r hen he might be in 
 a better frame of mind, Ginger looked out of the window, 
 announced that "there wasn't half a fog coming over," and 
 that he hr a good mind to make himself comfortable in- 
 doors for the rest of the day. 
 
 This was enough for the Sailor. The fog put the night 
 school out of the question for that afternoon; it must be 
 postponed till the morrow. All the same, he fell into a 
 black and bitter mood in which self-disgust came upper- 
 most. 
 
 157
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Ginger's good mind to stay indoors did not materialize. 
 As soon as the clock chimed four he remembered that he 
 had to play a hundred up with Dinkie at the Crown and 
 Cushion. 
 
 At quarter-past four, Miss Foldal came in, drew down 
 the blinds, lit the gas, and laid the cloth for tea. She then 
 sought permission, as the fire was such a good one, to toast 
 a muffin at it, which she proceeded to do with the elegance 
 that marked her in everything. 
 
 The Sailor had never seen anybody quite so elegant as 
 Miss Foldal in the afternoon. The golden hair was curled 
 and crimped, the blonde complexion freshly powdered, there 
 was a superb display of jewelry upon a fine bosom, she 
 was tightly laced, and the young man watching her with 
 grave curiosity heard her stays creak as she bent down at 
 the fire. 
 
 Two ladies further apart than Miss Foldal and Auntie 
 would be hard to conceive. Dimly the young man had 
 begun to realize that it was a very queer cosmos in which 
 he had been called to exercise his being. There were whole 
 stellar spaces between Auntie and Miss Foldal. 
 
 The latter lady was not merely elegant, she was kind. 
 Miss Foldal was very kind indeed to Mr. Harper. From 
 the day he had entered her house, she had shown in many 
 subtle ways that she wanted to make him feel at home. 
 And Mr. Harper, who up till now only realized Woman 
 extrinsically, already considered Miss Foldal a very nice 
 lady. 
 
 It was true that Ginger referred to her rather contemp- 
 tuously as Old Tidde-fol-lol, and saw, or affected to see, 
 something deep in her most innocent actions. But the 
 Sailor, with a natural reverence for her sex in spite of all 
 he had suffered at its hands, was constrained to believe 
 these slighting references to Old Tidde-fol-lol were lapses 
 158
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 of taste on the part of his hero. Homer nods on occasion. 
 Henry Harper was not acquainted with that impressive 
 fact at this period of his life, but he was sure that 
 Ginger was a little unfortunate in his references to Miss 
 FoldaL 
 
 The Sailor was beginning to like Miss Foldal immensely. 
 He did not go beyond that. The great apparition of 
 Woman in her cardinal aspect had not yet appeared to him, 
 and was not to do so for long days to come. As Ginger 
 said, he was a kid at present, and hardly knew he was born. 
 Still, he was beginning to take notice. 
 
 "Would you like me to pour out your tea, Mr. Harper?" 
 
 "Thank you, miss." He was no longer so ignorant as to 
 say, "Thank you, lady." 
 
 "Sugar?" 
 
 "Please, miss." 
 
 He admired immensely the manipulation of the sugar 
 tongs by those elegant hands. They were inclined to be fat 
 and were perhaps rather broad to the purview of a connois- 
 seur, but they were covered in rings set with stones more 
 or less precious, and the soul of Henry Harper responded 
 instinctively to all that they meant and stood for. The 
 hands of Auntie were not as these. 
 
 "You do take two lumps and milk, of course?" 
 
 There was an ease and a charm about Miss Foldal that 
 made the Sailor think of velvet. 
 
 "Now take a piece of muffin while it's warm." 
 
 She offered the muffin, already steeped in delicious butter, 
 with the slightly imperious charm of a Madame Recamier, 
 not that Henry Harper knew any more about Madame 
 Recamier than he did about Homer at this period of his 
 career. Yet he may have known all about them even then. 
 He may have known all about them and forgotten all 
 about them, and when the time came to unseal the inner 
 159
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 chambers of his consciousness, perhaps he would remember 
 them again. 
 
 Auntie had never handed him a muffin in such a way as 
 that. Mrs. Sparks hadn't either. Ginger might sneer and 
 call her Old Tidde-fol-lol, although not to her face he was 
 always very polite to her face but there was no doubt she 
 was absolutely a lady, and her muffins . . . her muffins 
 were extra. 
 
 This afternoon, Miss Foldal lingered over the tea table 
 in most agreeable discourse. The fog was too thick for her 
 to venture into the market place, where she wanted to go. 
 
 "If it's shopping you want, miss," said Mr. Harper, 
 with an embarrassment that made her smile, "let me go and 
 do it for you." 
 
 "I couldn't think of it, Mr. Harper." 
 
 "I will, miss, I'll be very glad to." She liked the deep 
 eyes of this strikingly handsome young man. 
 
 "I couldn't think of it, Mr. Harper. I couldn't really. 
 Besides, my shopping will keep till tomorrow." 
 
 "You know best, miss." There was resignation tempered 
 by a certain chivalrous disappointment. Quite uncon- 
 sciously, Mr. Harper was doing his utmost to rise to the 
 standard of speech and manner of Miss Foldal, which was 
 far beyond any he had yet experienced. 
 
 "I saw in the Evening Star that you won your match on 
 Saturday." 
 
 "Yes, miss, four-two." But the mention of the Evening 
 Star was a stab. Every night the Evening Star presented 
 its tragic problem. 
 
 "Mr. Jukes tells me you will be having a trial with the 
 first team soon." 
 
 Mr. Jukes had told Miss Foldal nothing of the kind. 
 She was the last person to whom he would have made any 
 such confidence. 
 
 160
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Oh no, miss." The native modesty was pleasant in her 
 ear. "I'm nothing near good enough yet." 
 
 "It will come, though. It is bound to come." 
 
 The young man was not stirred by this prophecy. His 
 mind had gone back to the night school; it was tormenting 
 itself with the problem ever before it now. He would have 
 liked to bring the conversation round to the matter, if only 
 it could be done without disclosing the deadly secret. But 
 the memory of Mrs. Sparks was still fresh. There was no 
 denying that for a chap of nineteen not to have the ele- 
 ments of the three r's was a disgrace; it was bound to preju- 
 dice him in the eyes of a lady of education. 
 
 Still, Miss Foldal was not Mrs. Sparks. Being a higher 
 sort of lady perhaps she would be able to make allowances. 
 Yet Henry Harper didn't want her or anyone else to make 
 allowances. However, he could not afford to be proud. 
 
 Chance it, suddenly decreed the voice within. She won't 
 eat you anyway. 
 
 XV 
 
 MISS FOLDAL, it seemed, had been trained in her 
 youth for a board school teacher. In a brief flash 
 of autobiography, she told Mr. Harper she had 
 never really graduated in that trying profession, but had 
 forsaken a career eminently honorable for the more doubt- 
 ful one of the stage, and had spent the rest of her life in 
 regretting it. But always at the back of her mind was 
 the sense of her original calling to leaven the years of her 
 later fall from grace. 
 
 Not only Miss Foldal, but the Sailor also was quick to 
 see the hand of Providence, when that young man, coloring 
 pink in the gaslight and eating his last muffin, made the 
 161
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 admission, "that his readin' an' writin' was rusty because 
 of havin' followed the sea." And she answered, "Reelly," 
 in her own inimitable way, to which the Sailor rejoined, 
 "Yes, miss, reelly, and do you fink you could recommend a 
 night school?" 
 
 "Night school, Mr. Harper?" And this was where the 
 higher kind of lady was able to claim superiority over Mrs. 
 Sparks. "Please don't think me impertinent, but I would 
 be delighted to help you all I could. You see, I was trained 
 for a pupil teacher before I went on the stage against my 
 father's wishes." 
 
 The heart of the Sailor leaped. In that tone of sincere 
 kindness was the wish to be of use. If Miss Foldal had 
 been trained as a pupil teacher, the night school in Driver's 
 Lane might not be necessary, after all. 
 
 "What do you want to learn?" said Miss Foldal, with 
 a display of grave interest. "I am afraid my French is 
 rather rusty and I never had much Latin and Italian to 
 speak of." 
 
 The Sailor was thrilled. 
 
 "Don't want no French, miss," he said, "or anythinlc 
 swankin'. I just want to read the Evenin Star an' be able 
 to write a letter." 
 
 "Do you mean to say " Like the lady she was, she 
 
 checked herself very adroitly. "I am quite sure, Mr. 
 Harper, that is easily arranged. How much can you read 
 at present?" 
 
 "Nothink, miss." The plain and awful truth slipped out 
 before he knew it had. 
 
 Miss Foldal did not flicker an eyelash. She merely said, 
 "I'll go and see if I can find Butter's spelling-book. I ought 
 to have it somewhere." 
 
 She went at once in search of it, and five minutes later 
 returned in triumph. 
 
 162
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Do you mind not sayin' anythink about it to Ginger 
 Jukes, miss?" the young man besought her. 
 
 "If it is your wish," said Miss Foldal, "I certainly wiH 
 not." 
 
 Here was the beginning of wisdom for Henry Harper. 
 The prophetic words of Klondyke came back to him. From 
 the very first lesson, which he took that evening after tea 
 before the return of G'iger from the Crown and Cushion, 
 it seemed that reading and writing was the Sailor's true line 
 of country. A whole new world was spread suddenly be- 
 fore him. 
 
 Mr. Harper was an amazingly diligent pupil. He took 
 enormous pains. Whenever Ginger was not about, he was 
 consolidating the knowledge he had gained, and slowly and 
 painfully acquiring more. At Miss Foldal's suggestion, he 
 provided himself with a slate and pencil. This enabled 
 him to tackle a very intricate business in quite a professional 
 manner. 
 
 It was uphill work making pothooks and hangers, having 
 to write rows of a-b, ab, and having to make sure of his 
 alphabet by writing it out from memory. But he did not 
 weaken in his task. Sometimes he rose early to write, some- 
 times he sat up late to read; every day he received instruc- 
 tion of priceless value. And never once did his preceptress 
 give herself airs, or sneer at his ignorance; above all, she 
 did not give him away to Ginger. 
 
 These were great days. The beginning of real, definite 
 knowledge gave Henry Harper a new power of soul. C-a-t 
 spelled cat, d-o-g spelled dog; nine went five times into 
 forty-five. There was no limit to these jewels of informa- 
 tion. If he continued to work in this way, he might hope 
 to read the Evening Star by the end of March. 
 
 In the meantime, while all these immense yet secret 
 labors were going forward, he felt his position with Ginger 
 163
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 was in jeopardy. Somehow as the weeks passed with the 
 Sailor still in the second team, they did not seem to be on 
 quite the terms that they had been. The change was so 
 slight as to be hardly perceptible, yet it hurt the Sailor, 
 who had a great capacity for friendship and also for hero 
 worship. Ginger, to whom his present fabulous prosperity 
 was due, must always be one of the gods of his idolatry. 
 
 The truth was, Ginger was one of those who rise to the 
 top wherever they are, while Henry Harper lacked this 
 quality. Ginger, although only in the second team at pres- 
 ent, always talked and behaved as if he was a member of 
 the first. There could be no doubt his honorable friendship 
 with Dinkie Dawson one of England's best, as the Eve- 
 ning Star often referred to him was the foundation upon 
 which he sedulously raised his social eminence. 
 
 In fact, Ginger seldom moved out of the company of the 
 first team. He played billiards with its members at the 
 Crown and Cushion; he played whist and cribbage with 
 them at the same resort of fashion; they almost regarded 
 him as one of themselves, although he had yet to win his 
 spurs; moreover, and this was the oddest part of the whole 
 matter, even the committee had come to look upon him 
 favorably. 
 
 The Sailor was a little wounded now and then by 
 Ginger's persiflage. Sometimes he held him up to ridicule 
 in a way that hurt. He made no secret, besides, of his 
 growing belief that there was not very much to the Sailor 
 after all, that he was letting the grass grow under his feet, 
 and that he was good for very little beyond getting down 
 to a hot one. No doubt, the root of the trouble lay in the 
 fact that during the first months of his service with the 
 Rovers, the Sailor was less interested in football and the 
 things that went with football than he ought to have been. 
 He was secretly giving his nights and days to a matter 
 164
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 which seemed of even greater importance than his bread 
 and butter. This might easily have led to disaster had it 
 not been for a saving clause ever present in the mind of 
 Henry Harper. 
 
 His dream, as a shoeless and stockingless newsboy, mis- 
 erably hawking his Result Edition through the mud of 
 Blackhampton, had been that one day he would help the 
 Rovers bring the Cup to his native city. This thought had 
 sustained him in many a desperate hour. Well, Henry 
 Harper was something of a fatalist now. He had come 
 very much nearer the realization of that dream than had 
 ever seemed possible. Therefore, he was not going to let 
 go of it. His mind was now full of other matters, but 
 he must not lose sight of the fact that it was his bounden 
 duty to make his dream come true. 
 
 To begin with he had to find his way into the first eleven. 
 But the weeks went by. January came, and with it the 
 first of the cup ties, but Henry Harper was still in the sec- 
 ond team and likely to remain there. It was not that he 
 did not continue to show promise. But something more 
 than promise was needed for these gladiatorial contests when 
 twenty, thirty, forty, fifty thousand persons assembled to 
 cheer their favorites, whose names were in their mouths 
 as household words. His time might one day come, if he 
 kept on improving. But it would not be that year. As 
 Ginger said, before he could play in a cup tie he would 
 have to get a bit more pudding under his shirt. 
 
 During these critical months Henry Harper was getting 
 other things to sustain him. Every week marked a definite 
 advance in knowledge. Miss Foldal found him other books, 
 and one evening at the beginning of March, he astonished 
 her not merely by spelling crocodile, but by writing it down 
 on his slate. 
 
 April came, and with it the end of the football season. 
 165
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Then arose a problem the Sailor had not foreseen. Would 
 the Rovers take him on for another year? He was still 
 untried in the great matches, he was still merely a youth 
 of promise. Would he be re-engaged? It was a question 
 for Ginger also. But as far as he was concerned, the matter 
 did not long remain in doubt. One evening in the middle 
 of that fateful month, he came in to supper after his usual 
 "hundred up" at the Crown and Cushion. 
 
 "Well, Sailor," he said, a note of patronage in his tone. 
 "I've fixed it with the kermittee. They are going to take 
 me on for next year." 
 
 Sailor was not surprised. His faith in Ginger never 
 wavered. 
 
 "Wish I could say the same for you, Sailor," said Ginger, 
 condescendingly; "but the kermittee think you are not quite 
 class." 
 
 "They are not goin' to take me on again!" said the Sailor 
 in a hollow voice. 
 
 "No. They think you are not quite Rovers' form. They 
 are goin' to give you back your papers." 
 
 Such a decree was like cold steel striking at the Sailor's 
 heart. The dream of his boyhood lay shattered. And there 
 were other consequences which just then he could not 
 muster the power of mind to face. 
 
 XVI 
 
 THOSE were dark hours for Henry Harper. Not 
 only must he yield great hopes, he must also give up 
 a princely mode of life. Here was a disaster which 
 must surely make an end of desires that had begun to 
 dominate him like a passion. 
 
 In this time of crisis Ginger showed his faith. He was 
 1 66
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 not a young man of emotional ardor, but the Sailor was a 
 chap you couldn't help liking, and in his heart Ginger be- 
 lieved in him; therefore all the influence he could muster 
 he brought to bear on those in high places. 
 
 This could not be done directly. Ginger was still in the 
 second team himself, but his social qualities had given 
 him a footing with the first. Among these, with the re- 
 doubtable Dinkie Dawson for his prop and stay, he let it 
 be widely circulated that it would be an act of folly for 
 the Rovers to turn down the Sailor without giving him a 
 fair trial, because sooner or later he was bound to make 
 good. 
 
 This view became so fashionable in the billiards' saloon 
 at the Crown and Cushion that it came to the ears of its 
 proprietor, who was no less a person than Mr. Augustus 
 Higginbottom. Therefore one evening Ginger was able to 
 hearten the Sailor in the depths of his despair. 
 
 "They are goin' to give you a trial with the first on 
 Saturday, young feller. And just remember all depends 
 on it. If you do well, you'll stay; if you don't, you'll have 
 to pack your bag." 
 
 It was not very comforting for one so highly strung as 
 the Sailor. But Ginger meant well; also he had done well; 
 it was entirely due to him that the Sailor was to have his 
 chance. And that chance would never have been his if 
 Ginger's astuteness had not been very considerable. 
 
 Saturday came, and Henry Harper found himself in 
 action with the first team at last. It was the end of the 
 season and little importance was attached to the match, but 
 the Sailor, as he took his place nervously in the goal, well 
 icnew that this game was to make or mar him. All was at 
 stake. He had felt as he lay sleepless throughout the pre- 
 vious night that the issue would try him too highly. It was 
 the penalty of imagination to be slain in battle before the 
 167
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 battle came. But when the hour arrived and he stood in 
 the goal, he was able after all to do his bit like a work- 
 man. 
 
 In his own way he was a fighter. And genius for goal- 
 keeping stood to him, as Ginger had been confident it would. 
 In the first minute of the game he gathered a hot one 
 cleverly, got rid of it before the enemy could down him, 
 and from that moment he had no further dread of losing his 
 nerve. 
 
 "What did I tell yer, Dink?" said Ginger with an air 
 of restrained triumph. "That young feller plays for Eng- 
 land one o' these fine afternoons." 
 
 This was a bold statement, yet not unsanctioned in high 
 places. That evening the Sailor was summoned to the 
 Presence, and was offered a contract for another season 
 with a promised rise if he continued to do well. 
 
 The months which followed meant much to Henry 
 Harper. In many respects they were the best of his life. It 
 was a time of dawning hope, of coming enlargement, of 
 slow-burgeoning wisdom. During those golden summer 
 mornings in which he wandered in the more or less vernal 
 meadows engirdling the city, latent, unsuspected forces 
 began to awake. Knowledge, knowledge, knowledge, he 
 craved continually. Every fresh victory won in an enchanted 
 field was a lighted torch in the Sailor's soul. 
 
 He knew that the playing of football was but a means 
 to an end. It gave him leisure, opportunity, wherewithal 
 for things infinitely more important. During those months 
 of his awakening, his desire became a passion. There were 
 whole vast continents in the mind of man, that he could 
 never hope to traverse. There was no limit to the vista 
 opened up by those supreme arts of man's invention, the twin 
 and cognate arts of reading and writing. 
 
 Knowledge is power. That statement had been made 
 168
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 quite recently by his already well-beloved Blackhampton 
 Evening Star. With his own eyes he had been able to read 
 that declaration. Its truth had thrilled him. 
 
 He was making such progress now that he could read 
 the newspaper almost as well as Ginger himself. He no 
 longer dreaded the unmasking of his guilty secret because 
 he no longer had one to unmask. Of course he had not 
 Ginger's ease and facility; to tackle a leading article was a 
 task of Hercules, but give him time and Marlow's Diction- 
 ary Miss Foldal had marked his diligence by the gift of 
 her own private copy and he need not fear any foe in 
 black and white. 
 
 September came, and with it football again. And from 
 the first match it was seen that Sailor Harper, which was 
 the name the whole town called him now, had taken a long 
 stride to the front. By the end of that month his place in 
 the first team was secure, and his fame was in the mouth 
 of everybody. 
 
 For many years, in Mr. Augustus Higginbottom's judg- 
 ment and there COM..J. be none higher the one need of 
 the Blackhampton Rovers had been a goalkeeper of Class. 
 They had one now. The Sailor was performing miracles 
 in every match, and Ginger, his mentor, was going about 
 with a permanent expression of, "What did I tell yer?" 
 upon a preternaturally sharp and freckled countenance. 
 
 Ginger did not allow the grass to grow under his own 
 feet either. He was now installed as billiards marker and 
 general factotum at the Crown and Cushion; in fact he 
 had already come to occupy quite a place at court. But 
 even this was not the limit of that vaulting ambition, which 
 was twofold: (i) to be the official right full back of the 
 Blackhampton Rovers; (2) the acquisition of a tobacconist's 
 shop in the vicinity of the Crown and Cushion. But the 
 latter scheme belonged, of course, to the distant future. 
 169
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Ginger was far-sighted, such had always been Dinkie 
 Dawson's opinion, and Dinkie did not speak unless he knew. 
 Therefore little surprise was caused by a startling rumor 
 at the beginning of November of Ginger's engagement to 
 Miss Maria Higginbottom. And it was coincident with 
 Ginger's "making good" with the Rovers' first team. 
 
 It was said that the engagement had not the sanction 
 of the chairman of the club. Nevertheless Ginger kept his 
 place as general factotum at the Crown and Cushion; 
 moreover, as understudy to Joe Pretyman who had been 
 smitten with water on the knee, he stepped into the breach 
 with such gallantry that the first part of his ambition was 
 soon assured. By sheer fighting power, by his sovereign 
 faculty of never knowing when he was beaten, Ginger in 
 the first week of December was in a position that nature 
 could hardly have meant him to grace. 
 
 "Blame my cats," said Mr. Augustus Higginbottom, 
 \vhose thoughts were a little rueful. "That Ginger's mus- 
 tard. He, plays better an' better in every match." 
 
 "Yes, Gus, he does," said Mr. S^fllite Albert. 
 
 On the evening of that proud day, Ginger obtained a rise 
 in his salary. According to rumor, no sooner had it been 
 granted than he urged Miss Maria Higginbottom to fix a 
 date. It was said that, in spite of Ginger's recent triumphs, 
 the lady declined the offer. Even money was freely laid, 
 however, that within a twelvemonth Ginger would lead 
 her to the altar. 
 
 During that glorious December, the Rovers won every 
 match. While the Sailor continued to be a wonder among 
 goalkeepers, Ginger quietly took his place as the authentic 
 successor to the famous Joe Pretyman. Indeed, things were 
 carried to such a perilous height of enthusiasm in the town 
 of Blackhampton that two coming events were treated as 
 accomplished facts: the Rovers would win the Cup and the 
 170
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Sailor would be chosen for England in the match against 
 Scotland. 
 
 These were dream days for Henry Harper. He was per- 
 forming miracles, yet compared with going aloft in a 
 gale in latitude fifty degrees everything seemed absurdly 
 simple. He had merely to stand on dry land, or on land 
 dry more or less, since the ground of the Rovers was not so 
 well drained as it might have been, in thick boots and a 
 warm sweater, catching a football which was so much easier 
 to seize than a ratline, and evading the oncoming forwards 
 of the enemy who were not allowed to use their hands, let 
 alone their knives. It was as easy as tumbling off a yard. 
 But there was just one drawback to it, which he did not 
 think of mentioning to anyone, not even to Miss Foldal. 
 Every match in which he played seemed to increase a feeling 
 of excitement he was never without. 
 
 This was queer. There was really so little to excite one 
 who had been six years before the mast. At first he was 
 inclined to believe it must be the presence of the crowd. 
 But he ought to have got over that. Besides, it was not the 
 crowd which caused the almost terrible feeling of tension 
 that always came upon him now the night before a match. 
 
 After a great game on Christmas Eve, he was raised 
 shoulder high by a body of admirers and carried off the 
 field. The committee of the club marked his achievements 
 by a substantial rise of wages and by obtaining his signature 
 to a contract for the following year. Ginger also, who had 
 perfofmed wonderful deeds, was honored in a manner 
 equally practical. That Christmas both were on the crest 
 of the wave. But the highest pinnacle was reserved for 
 the Sailor. It was not merely that he was tall and straight 
 and strong as steel, that he could spring like a cat from 
 one side of the goal to the other, or hang like a monkey 
 from the crossbar, or fling his lithe body at the ball with 
 13 171
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 calculated daring; it was perhaps his modesty which took 
 the public captive. 
 
 It may have been this or it may not; there is so little of 
 the corporate mind of man that can be reduced to set terms. 
 Ginger's most partial worshiper would have had to look 
 a long while to find modesty in the bearing of that hero, 
 yet he was very popular also. Nothing succeeds like suc- 
 cess, was an apothegm of the Blackhampton Evening Star. 
 The Sailor knew that now from experience, but he was 
 presently to know, as he had known before, that nothing 
 fails like failure, at least in the minds of many for whom 
 the Blackhampton Evening Star was the last word of wisdom. 
 
 XVII 
 
 SAILOR BOY," said Ginger, on Christmas night, 
 "what are you readin' now?" 
 " 'Pickwick Papers,' " said the Sailor, trying to 
 speak as if this was nothing out of the common. 
 "Potery?" 
 
 "It's by Charles Dickens," said the Sailor, with a thril! 
 of triumph which he was quite unable to keep out of his 
 voice. 
 
 When Ginger was out of his depth, which was not very 
 often, he always took care not to give himself away. The 
 only Charles Dickens with whom he was acquainted was 
 doing great things just now at center half back for Ducking- 
 field Britannia. But with all respect to Chas., Ginger did 
 not believe that he was the author of the "Pickwick Papers." 
 Therefore he made no comment. But silence did not 
 debar him from the process of thought. 
 
 "Sailor boy," he said at last, "if you take the advice o* 
 your father, you'll not go over-reading yerself. Them deep 
 172
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 books what you get out o' the Free Libry is dangerous, 
 that's my experience. Too much truck with 'em turns a 
 chap's brain. Besides, they mean nothing when you've 
 done." 
 
 The Sailor was less impressed than usual. But Ginger 
 was very clear upon the point. 
 
 "I once knowed a chap as over-read hisself into quod. 
 He was as sound a young feller as you could find in a 
 month o' Sundays, but he took to goin' to the Free Libry to 
 read Socialism, and that done him in. He come to think all 
 men was equal and Mine is Thine, and that sort o' tommy, 
 an' it took a pleadin' old Beak to set him right in the mat- 
 ter; at least he give him six months without the option, 
 and even that didn't convince the youth. Some chaps take 
 a deal o' convincin'. But the Free Libry was that chap's 
 ruin, there's no doubt about it." 
 
 Ginger urged this view with a conviction that rather 
 alarmed the Sailor. "Pickwick Papers," although very 
 difficult and advanced reading, seemed harmless enough, 
 but Ginger had such a developed mind, he appeared to know 
 so much about everything, that the Sailor felt it would be 
 the part of wisdom to consult Miss Foldal. 
 
 It had been her idea that he should join the Free Library. 
 He had promptly done so, and from the perfectly amazing 
 wealth of the world's literature garnered there had led off 
 with the "Pickwick Papers," which he had heard was, next 
 to the Bible and "Barriers Burned Away," the greatest book 
 in the English language. His instinct pointed to "Barriers 
 Burned Away" he had read little bits of the Bible already, 
 of which Miss Foldal had a private copy but he felt that 
 "Pickwick Papers" was the less difficult work of the two. 
 For the present, therefore, he must be content with that 
 famous book. 
 
 Miss Foldal reassured him wonderfully. She was con- 
 173
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 vinced that Mr. Jukes took an extreme view. She had 
 never read any of the works of Dickens herself, she simply 
 couldn't abide him, he was too descriptive for her, but she 
 was sure there was no harm in him, although she had heard 
 that with Thackeray it was different. Not that she had read 
 Thackeray either, as she understood that no unmarried lady 
 under forty could read Thackeray and remain respectable. 
 
 The Sailor was strengthened by Miss Foldal's view of 
 Dickens, but her reference to the rival and antithesis of that 
 blameless author was in a sense unfortunate. Mr. Harper 
 wanted to take back "Pickwick Papers" at once; he had 
 had it three weeks and had only just reached Chapter Nine; 
 he would exchange it for the more lurid and worldly works 
 of the licentious Thackeray. But Miss Foldal dissuaded 
 him. For one thing, she had the reputation of her house- 
 hold to consider. She had once had an aunt, an old lady 
 very widely read and of great literary taste, who always 
 maintained that the "Vanity Fair" of Thackeray ought to 
 have been burned by the common hangman, and that noth- 
 ing but good would have been done to the community if 
 the author had been burned along with it. Miss Foldal 
 allowed that her aunt had been an old lady of strong views; 
 all the same, she was of opinion that Thorough must be Mr. 
 Harper's motto. He had begun "Pickwick Papers," and 
 although she allowed it was dry, he must read every word 
 for the purpose of forming his character, before he even so 
 much as thought about Thackeray. 
 
 "Rome was not built in a day," said Miss Foldal. "Those 
 who pursued knowledge must not attempt to run before 
 they could walk. Thackeray was so much more advanced 
 than Dickens that to read the one before the other was like 
 going to a Robertson comedy or Shakespeare before you 
 had seen a pantomime or the Moore and Burgess Min- 
 strels." 
 
 174
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 The ethics of Miss Foldal were a little too much for the 
 Sailor. But one fact was clear. For once Ginger was 
 wrong: no possible harm could come of reading Charles 
 Dickens. 
 
 Thus Henry Harper was able to continue his studies in 
 ease of mind. And at the beck of ambition one thing led 
 to another in the most surprising way. His appetite for 
 knowledge grew on what it fed. Reading was only one 
 branch; there was the writing, also the ciphering. The 
 latter art was not really essential. It was rather a side- 
 dish, and hors-d'oeuvre Miss Foldal's private word but 
 it was also very useful, and in a manner of speaking you 
 could not lay claim to the education of a gentleman with- 
 out it. 
 
 The Sailor did not at present aspire to a liberal educa- 
 tion, but he remembered that Klondyke had always set great 
 store by ciphering and had taught him to count up to a 
 hundred. It was due perhaps to that immortal memory 
 rather than to Miss Foldal's somewhat fanciful and ro- 
 mantic attitude towards the supremely difficult science of 
 numbers that Henry Harper persevered with the multipli- 
 cation table. At first, however, the difficulties were great. 
 But his grit was wonderful. Early in the winter morn- 
 ings, while Ginger was still abed, and Miss Foldal also, 
 he would come downstairs, light the gas in the sitting- 
 room, put on his overcoat and sit down to three hours' solid 
 study of writing and arithmetic. Moreover, he burned the 
 midnight oil. Sometimes with the aid of Marlow's Dic- 
 tionary, he read the "Pickwick Papers" far into the night, 
 with a little of the Bible for a change, or the Blackhamp- 
 ton Evening Star. And if he had not to be on duty with 
 the club, he would spend all his time in these exacting 
 occupations. 
 
 In the meantime, the Blackhampton Rovers were making 
 175
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 history. They were an old established club; for many years 
 they had had one of the best teams in the country, and 
 although on two occasions they had been in the semi-final 
 round for the Cup, they had never got beyond that critical 
 stage; therefore the long coveted trophy had not yet been 
 seen in the city of Blackhampton. 
 
 However, the Cup was coming to Blackhampton this 
 year, said the experts in football with whom the town was 
 filled. The Rovers had not lost a match since September 
 12. They had won three cup ties already, beating on each 
 occasion a redoubtable foe, of whom one was that ancient 
 and honorable enemy, the Villa. One more victory and 
 the Rovers would be in the semi-final again. 
 
 As far as local knowledge could discern there was none 
 to thwart the Rovers now. In the words of Mr. Augustus 
 Higginbottom, every man was a trier, the whole team was 
 the goods. They had the best goalkeeper in England, and 
 Ginger, in whom he had never really believed, had turned 
 out mustard. The proprietor of the Crown and Cushion, 
 with that largeness of mind which is not afraid to change 
 its opinions, expressed himself thus a few minutes before 
 closing time in the private bar when he took "a drop r,f 
 summat" to stimulate the parts of speech and the powers of 
 reason. 
 
 The Rovers could not fail to win the Cup. According to 
 rumor, after the triumph over the Villa, they were freely 
 backed. This may have been the case or it may not. But 
 no body of sportsmen could have been more confident than 
 the thirty thousand odd who paid their shillings and their 
 sixpences with heroic regularity, who followed the fortunes 
 of the Rovers in victory or defeat. 
 
 For this noble body of partisans there was one authentic 
 hero now. Dinkie Dawson was class, Erb Mullins was a 
 good un, Mac was as good a one as ever came over the 
 176
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Border, Ginger was a terror for his size and never knew 
 v. hen he was beat, but it was the Sailor in goal who caught 
 and held every eye. There was magic in all the Sailor 
 did and the way he did it, which belonged to no one else, 
 which was his own inimitable gift. 
 
 Sailor Harper was the idol of the town. He might have 
 married almost any girl in it. People turned round to look 
 at him as he walked over the canal bridge towards the 
 market place. Even old ladies of the most fearless and 
 terrific virtue seemed involuntarily to give the glad eye to 
 the fine-looking lad "with all the oceans of the world in 
 his face," as a local poet said in the Evening Star, when he 
 got into a tram or a bus. If the Sailor had not been the 
 soul of modesty, he would have been completely spoiled 
 by the public homage during these crowded and glorious 
 weeks. 
 
 It was a rare time for Blackhampton, a rare time for 
 the Rovers, a rare time for Henry Harper. The very air 
 of the smoke-laden and unlovely town seemed vibrant with 
 emotion. A surge of romance had entered his heart. The 
 wild dream of his newsboy days was coming true. He was 
 going to help the Rovers bring the Cup to his native city. 
 
 Such a thought made even the "Pickwick Papers," now 
 Chapter Twenty-three, seem uninspired. He had not ven- 
 tured on Shakespeare; he was not ripe for it yet, said Miss 
 Foldal. Shakespeare was poetry, and the crown of all wis- 
 dom, the greatest man that ever lived with one exception, 
 but the time would come even for the Bard of Avon. On 
 the night the Rovers brought home the Cup, Miss Foldal 
 volunteered a promise to read aloud "Romeo and Juliet," 
 the finest play ever written by Shakespeare, in which she 
 herself had once appeared at the Blackhampton Lyceum, 
 although that was a long time ago. 
 
 However, there the promise was. But when it came 
 J77
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 to the ears of Ginger he expressed himself as thoroughly 
 disgusted. 
 
 "Keep your eyeballs skinned, young feller," said that 
 misogynist. "That's the advice of your father. She's 
 after your four pound a week. Take care you are not 
 nabbed. You ain't safe with old Tidde-fol-lol these days, 
 you ain't reelly." 
 
 The Sailor was hurt by such reflections on one to whom 
 he owed much. It is true that a recent episode after supper 
 in the passage had rather disconcerted him, but it would be 
 easy to make too much of it, as he was never quite sure 
 whether Miss Foldal did or did not intend to kiss him, even 
 if she put her arms round his neck. Also he had once seen 
 her take a bottle of gin to her bedroom, but he was mucK 
 too loyal to mention to Ginger either of these matters; 
 and, after all, what were these things in comparison with 
 her elegance and her refinement, her knowledge of Shake- 
 speare and the human heart? 
 
 XVIII 
 
 GREAT was the excitement in the town when the 
 Evening Star brought out a special edition with 
 the news that the Rovers had to play Ducking- 
 field Britannia in the fourth round of the Cup. 
 
 Duckingfield was the center of a mining district about 
 fifteen miles away, and the rivalry between the Britannia 
 and the Rovers was terrific. In the mind of any true Black- 
 bamptonian there was never any question as to their re- 
 spective merits. The Rovers had forgotten more about 
 football than the Britannia would ever know. One was 
 quite an upstart club; the other, as all the world knew, 
 went back into the primal dawn of football history. The 
 178
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Rovers practiced the science and culture of the game; the 
 Britannia relied on brute force and adjectival ignorance. 
 
 Still, Duckingfield Britannia were doughty foes, and 
 although the Rovers had no need to fear anyone, the feeling 
 at the Crown and Cushion was that they rather wished 
 they had not to play them. The truth was, in their battles 
 with these upstarts, the Rovers never seemed able to live up 
 to their reputation. Whether they met at Duckingfield or 
 at Blackhampton, and in no matter what circumstances, the 
 Rovers invariably got the worst of the deal. This was odd, 
 because the Rovers were much the superior team in every 
 way, always had been, always would be. They didn't know 
 how to play football at Duckingfield, whereas Blackhamp- 
 ton was the home of the game. 
 
 Moreover, there was one historic meeting between these 
 neighbors which was always a causa foederis at any gather- 
 ing of their partisans. It was a certain match on neutral 
 ground in which they met in the semi-final for the Cup, 
 when to the utter confusion and bewilderment of all the 
 best judges, the Rovers, who in their own opinion had really 
 won the Cup already, were beaten four goals to nothing. 
 It is true that a snowstorm raged throughout the match, 
 and to this fact the defeat of the Rovers was always ascribed 
 by the lovers of pure football. It could never be accounted 
 for on any other hypothesis. No comparison of the real 
 merits of the teams was possible, any more than it was pos- 
 sible to compare the towns whence they sprang. You could 
 not mention a town like Duckingfield in the same breath as 
 a town like Blackhampton ; to speak of the Britannia being 
 the equal of the Rovers merely betrayed a fundamental 
 ignorance of what you were talking about. 
 
 All the same the feeling in the private bar of the Crown 
 and Cushion on the night of the announcement that the 
 Rovers and the Britannia must meet once more in a cup tie 
 179
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 was one of anxiety. It had long been felt in Blackhampton 
 that the fates never played quite fairly in the matter of 
 Duckingfield Britannia. No reasonable person outside the 
 latter miserable place ever questioned the Rovers' immense 
 superiority, but there was no glossing over the fact that a 
 clash of arms with these rude and unpolished foemen ended 
 invariably in darkness and eclipse. "It's what I always 
 say," Mr. August Higginbottom would affirm on these 
 tragic occasions, "they don't know how to play footba' at 
 Duckingfill. Bull-fighting's their game. Brute force and 
 hignorance, that's all there is to it." 
 
 For ten days nothing was talked of in Blackhampton but 
 the coming battle. But there could be only one result. 
 Britannia was bound to be wiped off the face of the earth. 
 Still, the whole town would breathe more freely on Satur- 
 day evening, when this operation had been performed and 
 the Rovers were safely in the semi-final round. 
 
 On the eve of the match, it was whispered all over Black- 
 hampton that big money was on. The confidence of the 
 enemy was overweening, ridiculous, pathetic; partisans of 
 the Britannia were said to be backing their favorites for 
 unheard-of sums. "Rovers would be all right if they had a 
 front parlor to play in," was a favorite axiom of these 
 unpolished foemen. "Britannia plays footba'. They don't 
 play hunt-the-slipper nor kiss-in-the-ring." 
 
 The great day dawned. A chill February dawn it was. 
 Queerly excited by the coming match, Henry Harper had 
 hardly closed his eyes throughout the previous night. He 
 knew that wonders were expected of him; there seemed no 
 reason, under Providence, why he should not perform them ; 
 in match after match, he had gone from strength to 
 strength ; yet on the eve he hardly slept. 
 
 He had not been sleeping for some little time now. He 
 had paid no heed to the warnings of Ginger, who was quite 
 1 80
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 sure "he was over-reading hisself," but he didn't believe this 
 was the case. No doubt he had studied hard ; his thirst for 
 knowledge grew in spite of the copious draughts with which 
 he tried to quench it. Only too often before a match, he felt 
 nervous, overstrung, but it did not occur to him that he was 
 on the verge of disaster. 
 
 On the morning of a never-to-be-forgotten day, the Sailor 
 rose before it was light to practice writing and to study 
 arithmetic he was as far as vulgar fractions now. He sat 
 in an overcoat in a fireless sitting-room for three hours 
 before breakfast, and continued his labors for several hours 
 afterwards. Then, after a light luncheon, he walked with 
 Ginger to the ground. 
 
 The famous field of the Rovers was called Gamble's 
 Pleasance. History has not determined the source of its 
 name. Extrinsically it was hard to justify. Only one tree 
 was visible, and not a single blade of grass. It was sur- 
 rounded on four sides by huge roofed structures of wood 
 and iron, towering tier upon tier; it had capacity for fifty 
 thousand people. When Ginger and the Sailor came on the 
 scene, these had taken up their places already, the gates had 
 been closed, and disappointed enthusiasts were turning away 
 by the hundred. There was not room in Gamble's Pleas- 
 ance for another human being. 
 
 It was a scene truly remarkable that met the eyes of 
 Ginger and the Sailor. Tier upon tier, wall upon wall of 
 solid humanity rose to the sky. The Blackhampton Excel- 
 sior Prize Brass Band fought nobly but in vain against fifty 
 thousanid larynxes, and mounted police did their best to 
 prevent their owners bursting through the barriers to the 
 field of play. 
 
 The majority were strong partisans of the Rovers and 
 wore favors of chocolate and blue. But there had been an 
 invasion of the Huns. Barbarians from the neighboring 
 181
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 town of Duckingfield could be picked out at a glance. One 
 and all wore aggressively checked cloth caps, on which a 
 red-and-white card was pinned bearing the legend, "Play 
 up, Britannia." 
 
 The supporters of that upstart club were massed in solid 
 phalanxes about the scene of action. They waved red>and- 
 white banners, they shook rattles, they discoursed the strains 
 of "Rule, Britannia" on trumpets and mouth-organs, they 
 let off fireworks, and far worse than all this, they indulged 
 in ribald criticism of their distinguished opponents' style of 
 play. "They were goin' to mop the floor with 'em as usual." 
 The consequence was hand-to-hand conflicts became general 
 all over the ground between the dignified supporters of 
 True Football, and these Visigoths who were ignorant of 
 that godlike science. These encounters pleasantly assirted 
 the efforts of the mounted police and the Blackhampton 
 Excelsior Prize Brass Band to beguile the fleeting minutes 
 until the combatants appeared on the field of honor. 
 
 "Yer talk about yer Sailor," said a red-and-white-rosetted 
 warrior with a rattle in one hand and a bottle of beer in the 
 other. "We'll give him Sailor. Rovers can swank, but they 
 can't play footba'." 
 
 "Villa didn't think so, anyway," said another sportsman, 
 who flaunted a chocolate-and-blue rose in his buttonhole 
 without intending any affront to horticulture. 
 
 "Villa," said the Duckingfield barbarian. "Who's Villa ! 
 Play oop, Britann-yah!" He then proceeded to render the 
 slogan of Britannia on the mouth-organ, until some seeth- 
 ing superpatriot hit him on the head from behind with a 
 rattle. 
 
 In the midst of the "scrap" that followed this graceful 
 rebuke, which two unmounted members of the Blackhamp- 
 ton Constabulary regarded from a strategic distance with the 
 utmost detachment, a cry of " 'Ere they come!" was loosed 
 182
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 from at least thirty-five thousand throats, and such a roar 
 rent the heavens as must have disturbed Zeus considerably 
 just as he was settling down for the afternoon. 
 
 "Play up, Rovers!" 
 
 Blackhampton might well be proud of the eleven wearers 
 of the chocolate and blue. A finer-looking set of warriors 
 would have been hard to find. And it did not lessen the 
 pride of their friends that among the eleven only the goal- 
 keeper could claim to be representing the place of his birth. 
 
 "Play up, Sailor!" 
 
 The slender, handsome boy, looking rather fine-drawn, 
 but with something of the turn of limb of a thoroughbred 
 racehorse, came into the goal and was duly greeted by his 
 admirers. 
 
 " 'E plays for England," proclaimed one of these. 
 
 "I don't think," said a Visigoth with a mouth-organ. 
 
 "Play up, Dink!" 
 
 The great Dinkie, side-stepping with the loose-limbed 
 elegance of a ragtime dancer, looked as smart as paint. 
 
 "There's not a better inside left playing footba'," said 
 another enthusiast, looking round for contradiction. 
 
 "I don't think," said a Visigoth with a rattle. 
 
 "Play up, Ginger!" 
 
 Ginger, with head of flame, looking more bow-legged, 
 prick-eared and pugnacious than ever, was a veritable pocket 
 edition of the "Fighting Temeraire." 
 
 " 'E's a daisy, ain't *e?" said the enthusiast. 
 
 "I don't think," quoth the Visigoth. 
 
 Another roar was loosed, this time by fifteen thousand 
 Duckingfield larynxes. 
 
 " 'Ere they are. Play oop, Britann-yah. Play oop, me 
 little lads." 
 
 All this was merely the prelude to such a game as never 
 was seen on Gamble's Pleasance. The Rovers were on the 
 183
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 crest of the wave. They had not lost a match since Septem- 
 ber 12, and this day was Saturday, February 20. They 
 were proud and confident, they were playing on their own 
 ground in the presence of their friends, and they had a very 
 long score to settle with Duckingfield Britannia. 
 
 And yet deep in the hearts of the wearers of the chocolate 
 and blue was the sense of fate. And it is a stronger thing 
 than any that has yet existed in the soul of man. Fought 
 they never so fiercely, under no matter what conditions, 
 whenever the haughty Rovers met these unpolished foemen 
 they had invariably to bite the dust or the mud, as the case 
 might be. 
 
 The pace was a corker to start with. It was as if twenty- 
 two parti-colored tigers had been suddenly let loose. But 
 it was not football that was played. Britannia was not 
 capable of expounding the noble science as it was understood 
 by the polished and urbane Rovers of Blackhampton. 
 
 "Goin' to be a dog-fight as usual," proclaimed Mr. 
 Augustus Higginbottom, who was seated in the exact center 
 of the members' stand. 
 
 This grim remark was a concession to the fact that the 
 Britannia was already fiercely attacking the Rovers' goal, 
 and that Ginger, under great pressure, had been compelled 
 to give a corner kick. 
 
 From the word "go" it was a terrific set-to. Up and 
 down, down and up, ding dong, hammer and tongs, east, 
 west, north and south of that turfless, sand-strewn area 
 surged the tide of battle. Evesy yard of ground was yielded 
 at the point of death; at least so it seemed to fifty thousand 
 spectators and six mounted constables who could hardly 
 breathe for excitement. 
 
 "Durn me, if that Ginger ain't top weight," hoarsely 
 remarked the chairman of the club to Mr. Satellite Albert. 
 
 Ginger had just laid out the center forward of the enemy 
 184
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 when a goal seemed sure. The advantage of the proceeding 
 was twofold. In the first place, the Rovers' citadel was still 
 uncaptured, in spite of the fact that thirty-five thousand 
 persons had as good as yielded it to the enemy, fifteen thou- 
 sand of whom were already hooting with delight at receiv- 
 ing it; while in the second place, Ginger's fellow warriors, 
 who were gasping and holding their sides, were provided 
 with a "breather." 
 
 "If Britannia would only play footba', it wouldn't mat- 
 ter," roared the Rovers' chairman in a bull's voice above 
 the din. 
 
 Five minutes' grace, the fruit of Ginger's timely action, 
 was much appreciated by his comrades, who were able to 
 recover their wind whiJe the enemy's center forward, supine 
 and attended by the club trainer with a sponge and a cor- 
 dial, recovered his. Nevertheless, the referee, a cock-spar- 
 row in knickerbockers, who tried to spoil a fine game by 
 .stopping it without visible reason for doing so, felt he could 
 do no less than caution Ginger for dangerous play. 
 
 "Turn him off." Fifteen thousand Duckingfielders be- 
 sought the referee. "Turn him off. Dirty dog!" 
 
 "Good old Ginger! Played, Ginger! Good on yer, 
 Ginger!" proclaimed thirty-five thousand stalwart Black- 
 hamptonians. 
 
 Had Ginger received marching orders thirty-five thou- 
 sand Blackhamptonians would know the reason why. 
 
 "Don't know what footba' is at Duckingfill," said Mr. 
 Augustus Higginbottom, glaring around with a truculence 
 awful to behold. 
 
 But they were at it again. Quarter was neither asked 
 nor given. Duckingfield Britannia couldn't play for rock 
 cakes, they couldn't play for toffee and bananas, but had 
 not the Sailor in goal performed one of his miracles just 
 before the referee blew his whistle for half time, the Rovers 
 185
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 would have been a goal down at that sorely needed interval. 
 
 As it was, when, at the end of forty-five minutes' pound- 
 ing, the twenty-two warriors limped off the ground to the 
 strain of "Hearts of Oak," rendered with extraordinary 
 vehemence by the Blackhampton Excelsior Prize Brass 
 Band, no goal had been scored, and fifty thousand persons 
 and six mounted policemen appeared for the time being rea- 
 sonably content. 
 
 "Can't call it footba', but you mark my words, Albert, 
 it is goin' to be a hell of a second half." 
 
 Mr. Satellite Albert could only faintly concur with the 
 chairman of the club. He had a rather weak heart. 
 
 XIX 
 
 IN the Rovers' dressing-room the trainer, an obese in- 
 dividual in a dirty cloth cap and dirtier sweater, 
 handed round a plate of sliced lemons to the team. 
 But, white as a ghost, sat the Sailor in a corner apart from 
 the rest. He realized that the match was only half over, 
 and with all his soul he wished it at an end. He was in 
 no mood for sucking lemons just now. The hand of fate 
 was upon him. 
 
 Everything seemed to be going round. He was so oddly 
 and queerly excited that he could hardly see. How in the 
 world he had stopped that shot and got rid of the ball with 
 two Britannias literally hurling themselves upon him, he 
 would never know. But he understood dimly, as he sat chin 
 in hand on the farthest bench by the washing basins, that 
 anything might happen before the match was over. The 
 truth was, and he simply dared not face it, this terrific 
 battle of giants was a bit too much for him. No, he dared 
 not face that thought, he, whose dream, whose imperial 
 1 86
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 destiny it was to bring the Cup for the first time to his 
 native city. 
 
 "Buck up, Sailor boy." 
 
 Ginger, the greatest hero of them all, had laid an affec- 
 tionate hand on his shoulder. 
 
 "Buck up, Sailor boy. You'll never stop a better nor 
 that one. We've got 'em boiled." 
 
 Mr. Augustus Higginbottom appeared in the dressing- 
 room, fur coat, chocolate waistcoat, blue tie, spats, watch- 
 chain and all. His face had a grim and dour expression. 
 
 "Me lads," said he, "if ye can make a draw on it there's 
 two pound apiece for ye. And if ye can win there's four. 
 Understand ?" 
 
 They all understood but Sailor. At that moment he 
 could neither hear nor see the chairman of the committee. 
 The only person he could see was a certain young Arris in 
 a certain tree, and all he knew was that a decree of inexor- 
 able fate compelled him to stand in the shadow of that tree 
 for forty-five minutes by the clock, with the gaze of fifty 
 thousand people and six mounted policemen centered upon 
 him. 
 
 The second half of the match began with a sensation. In 
 the very first minute, the dauntless Ginger checked a rush 
 by the enemy's left, gave the ball a mighty thump with his 
 good right boot, and more by luck than anything it fell at 
 the feet of Dinkie Dawson. And he, as all the world knew, 
 was; on his day and in his hour, a genius. He trapped the 
 ball, he diddled and dodged, he pretended to pass but he 
 didn't. He merely kept straight on, yet feinting now to the 
 right and now to the left of him. Britannia's center half 
 back, a bullet-headed son of Hibernia, challenged him ruth- 
 lessly, but at the psychological instant Dinkie side-stepped 
 in a way he had, and he of the bullet head barged fathoms 
 deep into the mud of Gamble's Pleasance. Britannia's left 
 13 187
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 full back now came up to see what was the matter, a sin- 
 gularly ill-advised proceeding; he ought to have waited for 
 trouble instead of going to look for it was the unanimous 
 opinion of fifteen thousand Duckingfielders, who shrieked 
 with dismay as Dinkie and the ball went pass the ill-advised 
 one before you could say "knife." And then it was that 
 fifty thousand persons and six mounted policemen suddenly 
 grew alive to an intensely critical situation. 
 
 It was this. Only one thing under Providence could 
 now save Britannia's citadel. A very fine and notable thing 
 it was, no less than the agile yet majestic goalkeeper, Alex- 
 ander MacFadyen by name, late of Glasgow Caledonians, 
 and many times an international player. There was no bet- 
 ter in the world to cope with such a titanic situation, but 
 in times like these Dinkie Dawson was not as other men. 
 
 The heroic Scot knew that, but he didn't flinch or turn a 
 hair. Alt the same, he must not go to Dinkie, as his puir 
 f ulish Saxon comrade had ; Dinkie must come to him. "Yes, 
 ma laddie," said the dour visage of Alexander MacFadyen, 
 "I'll be waitin' for ye, I'm thinkin'." 
 
 It was such a moment as no pen leaving out Shake- 
 speare and the football reporter for the Evening Star could 
 do justice to. "I'm waitin' for 3 r e, Dinkie, ma laddie," said 
 Alexander MacFadyen, with Dinkie coming on and on, his 
 dainty feet twinkling to the tunes of faerie. Hardly so 
 much as the horse of a mounted policeman ventured to 
 breathe. For a fraction of an instant, the two warriors 
 eyed each other like tiger-cats about to spring. Crash! It 
 was sheer inspiration. Dinkie had drawn a bow at a ven- 
 ture. The ball lay in the corner of the goal net, the citadel 
 was captured, Britannia's flag was down. 
 
 It was, undoubtedly, in the opinion of thirty-five thou- 
 sand souls the finest goal seen on Gamble's Pleasance within 
 the memory of man. In the considered judgment of the 
 188
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 other fifteen thousand it was such a wicked fluke that a 
 well contested game was covered with ridicule. 
 
 Over the scene that followed it is kind to draw the veil. 
 People of all ages and both sexes made themselves so in- 
 describably ridiculous that Zeus of the Bright Sky, in 
 dudgeon no doubt for the ruin of his afternoon, drew down 
 the blinds and sought to cool their courage with one of his 
 honest showers of rain. 
 
 It seemed all over, bar the shouting. There was only 
 twenty minutes to play. The Rovers were still leading one 
 goal to nothing, the attacks of the Britannia were being 
 shattered against the rock of an impregnable defense, when 
 a string of tragic incidents befell which turned a sure tri- 
 umph into dire disaster. 
 
 Some maintain it was the rain alone which caused the 
 debacle. None can deny that the ball was greased by Jupi- 
 ter's shower. But even that fact cannot cover all that hap- 
 pened. As for the other sinister explanation, which is firmly 
 believed at Blackhampton to this day, it was never accepted 
 by the fellow players of him who gave away the match. 
 
 Fate was at the root of the tragedy. There were twenty 
 minutes to play, the Rovers were leading one to nothing, and 
 the Sailor had to take a free kick from goal. He could do 
 this at his leisure; according to the laws of the game no 
 opponent was allowed to approach. But as he placed the 
 ball for the kick, he somehow failed to notice in the gather- 
 ing "gloom that Ginger was right in the line of fire. Of 
 course he ought to have done so. Yet so great was his 
 excitement now that he did not know what he was doing. 
 He took the kick; the ball struck Ginger full in the middle 
 of the back and rebounded through the goal. 
 
 It was growing so dark that at first not a soul realized 
 what had happened. By the time the goalkeeper, like a 
 man in a dream, had retrieved the ball from the net, the 
 189
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 awful truth was known. The Sailor had given away the 
 match. 
 
 Henry Harper never forgot to his dying day the look in 
 the eyes of Ginger. In the presence of their grim reproach 
 his one desire was for the earth to open and swallow him. 
 
 Pandemonium had been unchained, but the Sailor heard 
 it not, as he leaned against the goalpost feeling like a man 
 in a nightmare. At that moment his whole being was dom- 
 inated by a single thought. He had given away the match. 
 
 Strictly speaking, all was not yet lost. But the Sailor 
 was completely unnerved by his crime, and Ginger's eyes 
 were haunting him. As he leaned against the post, the far- 
 thest from the tree sacred to the memory of young Arris, 
 he knew that if anything came to him now, he would not 
 be able to stop it. 
 
 Another shot came. It was inevitable. The gift of the 
 gods was as wine in the veins of Duckingfield Britannia. 
 .They were tigers again: eleven parti-colored tigers. But 
 the second shot was just a slow trickling affair that any 
 goalkeeper in his senses ought to have been able to deal 
 with. But the Sailor bungled it miserably. He didn't 
 know how, he didn't know why, but the ball wriggled 
 slowly out of his hands through the goal, and the match 
 was lost beyond hope of recovery. 
 
 There could be no thought now of the Cup coming to 
 Blackhampton. He daren't look at Ginger. He tried not 
 to hear, he tried not to see. It must all be a hideous dream. 
 But there to the left was the historic tree simply alive with 
 young Arrises cursing and scorning him. Suddenly there 
 was a mighty surge by the crowd in the farthest corner of 
 the ground, which called for all the address of the mounted 
 police to restrain. 
 
 "Sailor, you've sold the match." 
 
 The ugly words were being bellowed at him out of the 
 190
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 night. He could hear the loud and deep curses of the 
 Rovers' partisans; he imagined he could see their fists being 
 shaken at him. He wished he was dead, but he had to 
 stand there another twelve minutes exposed to the public 
 ignominy. 
 
 In that twelve minutes, Duckingfield Britannia scored 
 four goals more. All was darkness and eclipse. The 
 Rovers, noble warriors as they were, had done all that mor- 
 tal men could do; in the case of the heroic Ginger, they 
 might even be said to have done a little more. But fate 
 was too much for them. The last line of defense, on which 
 all depended, had played them false. The Sailor muddled 
 hopelessly everything that came to him now. The end of 
 the game was not merely a defeat for the Rovers, it was a 
 disaster, a rout. 
 
 The referee blew his whistle for the last time, and Act 
 One of the tragedy was at an end. But its termination 
 was merely the signal for Act Two to begin. The crowd, 
 in a frenzy of rage, surged over the ground. "Sailor's sold 
 the match," was the cry of the angry thousands. 
 
 The oncoming hordes had no terrors for Henry Harper. 
 Let them do with him as they liked. Death would have 
 been more than welcome as he leaned against the goalpost, 
 not seeking to escape the tender mercies of the mob. 
 
 It was Ginger who realized the danger. 
 
 "Dink," he called hoarsely, "Mac, Peter, Joe, they are 
 coming for Sailor. They'll kill him if they catch holt on 
 him." 
 
 It was true. And it seemed that the sternest fight of 
 that terrific day was yet to be. An angry mob is not respon- 
 sible for its actions. There was a fierce set-to between a 
 handful of good men, with help from six mounted con- 
 stables, and many hundreds bereft by an excitement which 
 at that moment made them little better than savages. 
 191
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Scrag 'im! Scrag 'im!" 
 
 Henry Harper could hear their voices all about him, but 
 little he cared. Indeed they were almost pleasant to his 
 ears. Again it was a case of hard pounding, with the police 
 bearing a gallant part, and the goalkeeper's escort taking 
 blows and freely returning them. 
 
 There was a vision in the mind of Henry Harper which 
 he never forgot, of the blood streaming down the face of 
 Ginger as he dealt out blows to the right and to the left 
 of him. He never forgot the look on the face of Dinkie 
 as they kept driving on and driving home. 
 
 Times and again it seemed as if the Rovers' partisans 
 must tear their late hero in pieces. But his escort got him 
 somehow to the dressing-room, and a strong force of the 
 Blackhampton Constabulary watched over it for a solid hour 
 by the pavilion clock. By that time, the crowd had dis- 
 persed, the ground was clear, and Henry Harper was able 
 to go home. 
 
 XX 
 
 YOU are late for your tea, Mr. Harper," said Miss 
 Foldal. "It's twenty past seven. It will be supper 
 time soon." 
 
 The Sailor apologized in his gentle, rather childlike way. 
 "Do you know where Ginger Jukes is, miss?" he asked, 
 in a queer voice. 
 
 "He came in for his tea and then went out again," 
 said Miss Foldal, regulating her tone with care. 
 
 She had been told already by the Evening Star that the 
 Rovers, after leading by a goal within twenty minutes of the 
 end of the game, had suffered a crushing and incompre- 
 hensible defeat, that the crowd had made an infuriated 
 attack on Harper, the goalkeeper, and in the blank space 
 192
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 reserved for the latest news, it said that in deference to pub- 
 lic feeling, the committee of the club had decided to hold 
 an inquiry into his conduct. 
 
 Miss Foldal was far too discreet to refer to the match. 
 But if ever she had seen tragedy in a human countenance, 
 it was now visible in the face of this young man. She 
 poured out a cup of tea for him, which he declined. Then 
 he said, in that queer voice which did not seem to belong 
 to him, that he would not be in need of supper. 
 
 "If you want my opinion, Mr. Harper," said Miss Fol- 
 dal, "you have been working too hard. I really think the 
 best thing for you is bed." 
 
 The young man stood white as a sheet with a face not 
 pleasant to look upon. 
 
 "I do reelly. Go to bed now, and I'll bring you a basin 
 of gruel with a little something in it." 
 
 A basin of gruel with a little something in it was Miss 
 Foldal's specific for all the ills to which flesh is heir. Men- 
 tion of it was clear proof that Mr. Harper's present condi- 
 tion gave cause for anxiety. 
 
 "I don't want nothing, miss," said the young man, in a 
 voice quite unlike his own. "It's very kind of you, but the 
 only thing I want just now is to be let be." 
 
 Had Mr. Jukes or any of her other lodgers made that 
 speech it would have seemed uncivil, but Miss Foldal knew 
 that Mr. Harper was incapable of any kind of intentional 
 rudeness. He was as gentle as a child. Perhaps that was 
 why the look now in his eyes hurt her so much. 
 
 Without saying anything else, the young man went up to 
 his bedroom. 
 
 Time passed. The supper hour came and went. Mr. 
 Jukes did not return and Mr. Harper did not come down 
 again. But it was this latter fact that disconcerted the land- 
 lady. She could not get the look of those eyes out of her 
 193
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 brain. Only once had she seen such a look in the eyes of 
 any human being, and that was in those of her Uncle Fred- 
 erick just before he destroyed himself. 
 
 Nine struck. There was no sound from the room above. 
 Miss Foldal grew horribly afraid. Memories of her Uncle 
 Frederick had descended very grimly upon her. 
 ' Perhaps Mr. Harper had gone to bed. She hoped and* 
 i>elieved that he had. And yet she could not be sure. It 
 Was her duty to go up to his room and inquire. But it was 
 too much for her nerves to be quite alone in the house. 
 Ethel, the maid-servant, had gone out shopping as it was 
 Saturday night, and Mr. Jukes had not yet come in for his 
 supper. 
 
 Miss Foldal was not a brave woman. Her deepest in- 
 stinct was against going up those stairs. It was much to 
 her credit that she did go up at a quarter past nine. The 
 door of Mr. Harper's room was shut, but a light was com- 
 ing from under it. 
 
 She knocked so timidly that a mouse would not have 
 heard her. 
 
 No answer. 
 
 She knocked again, a little louder, as she imagined, but 
 no louder in reality. 
 
 Still no answer. 
 
 "It is exactly as I feared." Miss Foldal began to shake, 
 and the spirit of her Uncle Frederick crept out from under 
 the door. 
 
 She wanted to scream; indeed, she was about to act in 
 this futile manner, when it suddenly occurred to her that 
 screaming would be no use whatever. Far wiser to open the 
 door, if only out of deference to the manes of her uncle, 
 whose end had taught her that suicide was not such a ter- 
 rible thing after all. 
 
 At last Miss Foldal opened the door of the bedroom. A 
 194
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 great surprise was in store, but it was not of the kind that 
 had been provided by her Uncle Frederick. 
 
 Mr. Harper, wearing his overcoat and cap, was in the act 
 of strapping together a bag full of clothes. The relief of 
 Miss Foldal was great; at the same time a quaver in her 
 voice showed that she was full of anxiety. 
 
 "Why, Mr. Harper, you are never going away?" 
 
 "Yes, miss." 
 
 "Without your supper?" 
 
 "Yes, miss." 
 
 "Mr. Harper, wherever are you going to?" 
 
 "Dunno, miss." The gentle voice had a stab in it for the 
 woman's heart of his landladj'. " 'Ere's my board and lodg- 
 ing, miss." He took a sovereign from his pocket, and put it 
 in her hand. "I'll be very sorry to go. I'm thinking I'll 
 never 'ave another 'ome like this." 
 
 Miss Foldal thought so too. Somehow she was not the 
 least ashamed of the sudden tears which sprang into her 
 eyes. There was some high instinct in her, in spite of her 
 rather battered and war-worn appearance, which seemed to 
 urge her to protect him. 
 
 "I cannot hear of you going away like this, Mr. Harper, 
 not at this time of night and without your supper, I cannot 
 reelly." 
 
 It was vain, however, of Miss Foldal to protest. More- 
 over, she knew it was vain. There was a look in Mr. Har- 
 per's "face that all the Miss Foldals in the world could not 
 have coped with. 
 
 "Well, I'm sorry, I'm very sorry," was all she could 
 gasp, and then he was gone. 
 
 195
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 XXI 
 
 BAG in hand he entered the February night. As he 
 turned up the collar of his overcoat his excitement 
 crystallized into a definite thought. Whatever hap- 
 pened he must not meet Ginger. 
 
 He didn't know where he was going; he had neither pur- 
 pose nor plan; his only guide was a vague desire to get a 
 long way from Blackhampton in a short space of time. 
 
 In obedience to this instinct, he passed over the canal 
 bridge, the main highway to the center of the city, turned 
 down several byways in order to avoid the Crown and 
 Cushion, threaded a path through a maze of slums and 
 alleys, and emerged at last, almost without knowing it, 
 within twenty yards of Blackhampton Central Station. 
 
 This seemed a special act of Providence; and subsequent 
 events confirmed Henry Harper in that view. He walked 
 through the station booking-hall, yet without taking a 
 ticket, since in a dim way he felt it was not wise to do so 
 before you have given the least thought to where you are 
 going. 
 
 A train was standing in the station. The porters were 
 closing the doors, the guard had taken out his whistle. 
 
 "Jump in, sir, we're off." 
 
 Henry Harper pitched head foremost into a first non- 
 smoker, his bag was pitched in after him, the door was 
 slammed, and the train was already passing through the 
 long tunnel at the end of the station before he was able to 
 realize what had happened. 
 
 An old lady was the only other occupant of the compart- 
 ment. She was a stern looking dame, with a magnificent 
 fur cloak, a dominant nose, fearless eyes, and a large black 
 hat with plenty of trimming but without feathers. 
 196
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 It was clear from the demeanor of the old lady that she 
 was inclined to regard the intruder with disfavor. How- 
 ever, as she was a person not without consequence in her 
 own small world, this was her fixed attitude of mind in 
 regard to the vast majority of her fellow creatures. But 
 she never allowed herself to be afraid of them, partly out 
 of pride, also because it was good for the character. All 
 the same, a nature less powerful might easily have pulled 
 the cord and communicated with the guard, such was the 
 look of wildness in the eyes of her fellow traveler. More- 
 over, he had fallen into her lap, and had trodden on her 
 foot rather severely, and she was not sure that he had 
 apologized. 
 
 Between Duckingfield Junction and High Moreton she 
 became involved in quite a train of speculations. In the 
 first place, he was obviously not a gentleman. That was 
 her habitual jumping-off point in her survey of the human 
 male. In fact, she would have ignored his existence had 
 it been possible to do so. But her foot had suffered so much' 
 from his clumsiness that she was not able to put him out 
 of her mind. Besides, she was a sharp and quizzical old 
 thing, and from the height of her own self-consequence she 
 stole glances at him that were a nice mingling of caution 
 and truculence. It was an honest, open, unusual face, there 
 was that to be said for it. The behavior, the manner, and 
 the portmanteau marked H. H. were unconventional, to 
 say "the least ; there was an absence of gloves, but the eyes 
 v, ore remarkable. Probably a young poet on his way to 
 Oxford for the week-end. Although they confessed to two 
 of these unfortunate persons in her own family, it was an 
 article of her faith that a poet was never a gentleman. 
 
 Somehow the young man in the corner interested the old 
 lady so much that when the last of the tunnels was safely 
 passed, a temperament by nature adventurous as became 
 197
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 three grandsons in the Household Cavalry led her to study 
 him at closer quarters. 
 
 "Do you mind having the window down a little?" 
 
 "No, lady." 
 
 He sprang to his feet and lowered the window, and the 
 old lady, pitying herself profoundly that she could ever have 
 thought about him at all, settled herself in her corner and 
 v/as very soon asleep. 
 
 This cynical proceeding had no effect upon the young 
 man opposite. As far as he was concerned she did not exist, 
 any more than he now existed for her; moreover, she never 
 had existed for him, therefore the balance of indifference 
 was in his favor. 
 
 The Sailor's one preoccupation, as the long and slow 
 succession of stations passed, was the face of Ginger. It 
 was gazing through the window at him out of the intense 
 darkness of the night. And what a face it was, with the 
 blood streaming down it and a look in the eyes he would 
 never forget. 
 
 Where was he going? He didn't know and he didn't 
 care, if only it was far enough from Blackhampton. Pres- 
 ently he began to feel cold and hungry and horribly lonely. 
 Now he was beginning to realize that Ginger and Miss 
 Foldal and Dinkie and the Rovers were things of the past, 
 his misery grew more than he could bear. His dream was 
 shattered! He would never bring the Cup to Blackhamp- 
 ton. And there was the face of Ginger looking in at the 
 window, and he nearly woke the old lady by jumping up 
 with a cry of agony. 
 
 There was nothing left for him now but to go on into 
 unending night. He was moving out of an unspeakable past 
 into a future of panic and emptiness. And then he tried to 
 sleep, but strange and awful thoughts prevented him. The 
 old lady awoke with a start, only to find that her feet were 
 198
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 cold in spite of their hot water bottle, which was also cold, 
 and was great negligence on the part of the railway com- 
 pany. Still, she hoped to be at the end of her journey soon. 
 In that reflection the old lady was more fortunate than 
 her fellow traveler, who had no such hope to console him. 
 
 XXII 
 
 THE train went on and on. Its stoppings and start- 
 ings were endless; the night grew very cold; the 
 old lady, gathering her fur cloak around her, reset- 
 tled herself in her corner and slept again. The chill in the 
 heart of the Sailor was now a deadly thing. Repose for 
 him was out of the question. Red and W 7 hite striped phan- 
 toms converged upon him through the gloom; tier upon 
 tier of massed humanity rose shrieking to the sky; but there 
 was only one face that he could recognize, and it was a face 
 he would never forget. 
 
 At last the Sailor dozed a little. And then the train 
 stopped once more, and an official of the railway company 
 entered the carriage with a demand for tickets. The old 
 lady found hers without difficulty, but the young man oppo- 
 site had no ticket, it appeared. Also his behavior was so 
 odd that at first the official seemed to think he was drunk. 
 He had no idea of where he was going. But the next sta- 
 tion," it seemed, was Marylebone, and that was as far as he 
 could go. 
 
 While the old lady watched from her corner grimly, the 
 official was able to gather that this unsatisfactory traveler 
 had come from Blackhampton, which, as he had been so 
 unwise as to travel first class, meant a sovereign in coin of 
 the realm. 
 
 The traveler was able to produce a sovereign from a belt 
 199
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 which he wore round his waist a proceeding which seemed 
 to stimulate the curiosity of his fellow traveler in the high- 
 est degree and paid it over without a murmur. The offi- 
 cial wrote out a receipt with an absurd stump of pencil. 
 
 "Thank you, mister," said the young man. 
 
 The train moved on. 
 
 A few minutes later it had come to the end of a long 
 and wearisome journey. The old lady was the first to leave 
 the carriage. She was assisted in doing so by the ministra- 
 tions of a very tall and dignified footman. 
 
 As the Sailor stepped to the platform, bag in hand, there 
 was a great clock straight before him pointing to the hour 
 of midnight. Where was he? He had never heard of 
 Marylebone. It might be England, it might be Scotland; 
 in his present state of mind it might be anywhere. 
 
 "Keb, sir?" The inquiry surged all round him, but the 
 Sailor did not want a cab. 
 
 His first feeling as he stood on the platform of that 
 immense station was one of sheer bewilderment. He didn't 
 know where he was, he had nowhere to go, he had no 
 plans. An intense loneliness came over him again. Soon, 
 however, it was merged in the exhilaration of the atmos- 
 phere around him. This was a different place from Black- 
 hampton; it was larger, more vital, more mysterious. 
 
 As he walked slowly down the platform the importance 
 of everything seemed to increase. He would have to think 
 things out a bit, although just now any kind of thinking 
 was torment. 
 
 He had learned much during his sixteen months at Black- 
 hampton, not only in regard to the world in which he lived, 
 but also and as he moved down the platform with his bag 
 the thought gave him a thrill of joy to read and write. 
 He felt these things, bought and paid for at a heavy cost, 
 were so infinitely precious that he need not fear the future. 
 200
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Straight before his eyes was the legend, "Cloak Room." 
 Sixteen months ago it would have been High Dutch. But 
 the new knowledge told him it was the place to leave your 
 bag. Accordingly, he went and left it, paid his twopence, 
 and put the ticket in exchange carefully in his belt, where 
 nineteen sovereigns and twelve half-sovereigns were secure. 
 
 He had learned the meaning of money during his six 
 years at sea. Perhaps it was the sight of so much and the 
 knowledge of its value that gave him a thrill of power as 
 he passed out of the station into the wide, peopled immen- 
 sity of this unknown land. There was a policeman standing 
 on an island in the middle of the road, and the time had 
 long passed since those grim days when he would have been 
 as likely to fly to the moon as to address a question to the 
 police. 
 
 "What place is this, mister?" 
 
 "Marylebone Road." 
 
 The information did not seem very valuable. Still, the 
 policeman's tone implied that it might be. As the Sailor 
 stood in the middle of the road he was suddenly comforted 
 by the sight of manna in the wilderness. Across the way 
 was a coffee stall. Such a bright vision told him how sore 
 was his need. 
 
 All the same he was not hungry. He drank two cups of 
 coffee, but he was too excited to eat. That was odd, be- 
 cause there was nothing to excite him. But when he turned 
 away from the stall and started to walk he didn't know 
 where, something curious and terrible had begun again to 
 lay hold of his brain. Nevertheless, he went on and on 
 through streets interminable, fully determined to free him- 
 self of that eerie, horrible feeling. 
 
 Had it not been for the face of Ginger perhaps all would 
 have been well. But it was lurking everywhere amid the 
 gloom and byways of the night. The place he was in was 
 201
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 endless ; it was a waste of bricks and mortar. Even Liver- 
 pool and the waterfront at Frisco could not compare with 
 it. Then it suddenly came upon him that he was a guy. 
 This place was London. It was the only place it could 
 be. 
 
 There was something in the mere thought which fired 
 the imagination of the Sailor. The Isle of Dogs had been 
 London in a manner of speaking, but this was surely the 
 heart of the city. He could not remember to have seen such 
 houses as he was passing now. Liverpool and Frisco had 
 2iad them no doubt. But in his present mood the mass and 
 'gloom of these great bulks addressed him strangely. This 
 vastness immeasurable, debouching upon the lamps at the 
 corners of the streets, was instinct with the magic of the 
 future. It was as if this world of bricks and mortar tow- 
 ering to the night was girt with fabulous secret riches. 
 
 Symbols of opulence spoke to the Sailor as he walked. 
 Somehow he felt he could claim kinship with them. He 
 had his store of riches also. No, it was not contained in 
 the belt around his body. That was only a very little 
 between him and the weather; a man like Klondyke would 
 soon have done it in. But Henry Harper could now read 
 and write, that was the thought which nerved him to meet 
 the future, that was his store of secret and fabulous wealth. 
 
 God knew he had paid a price for Aladdin's lamp. A 
 week ago that night he had seen performed at the Black- 
 hampton Lyceum the first play of his life, "Aladdin's Won- 
 derful Lamp." He had sat in the pit, Dinkie Dawson one 
 side of him, Ginger the other. He had now his own won- 
 derful lamp. It was glowing and burning, a mass of dull 
 fire, in the right-hand corner of his brain. It was a talis- 
 man which had come to him at the cost of blood and tears; 
 a magic gift of heaven that he must guard with life itself. 
 
 On and on he went. Now and again the face of Ginger 
 202
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 tried to overthrow him, but the presence of the talisman 
 meant much to him now. . . . 
 
 After weary hours his pace began to fail. There were 
 no more houses as far as he could tell. Grass was under 
 his fe?t; bushes of furze and a clean smell of earth envel- 
 oped him. The darkness was less, but everything was very 
 still. Suddenly he felt strangely tired. And then an awful 
 feeling crept upon him. 
 
 A low wooden seat was near, and he sat on it. It was 
 still dark, and the weather was particularly chill February. 
 As he drew his overcoat across his knees, he was overmas- 
 tered by a sense of terror. Somehow it seemed more subtle 
 and more deadly than all the fear he had ever known; of 
 Auntie, of Jack the Ripper, of the Chinaman, of the Old 
 Man, of the Island of San Pedro, of Duckingfield Bri- 
 tannia, of even that blood-stained visage of which he could 
 still catch glimpses in the darkness. It was a stealthy dis- 
 trust of Aladdin's lamp, the wonderful talisman glowing 
 like a star in the right-hand corner of his brain. 
 
 Long he sat in the February small hours. He would wait 
 for the light, having neither inclination nor strength to 
 continue his journey into regions unknown. It grew very 
 cold. And then a new fear crept over him. He felt he 
 was going to become very ill. 
 
 However, he determined to use all the force of his will. 
 This feeling was pure imagination, he was sure. He would 
 put it out of his mind. It was a matter of life and death 
 not to be ill now. And not for a moment must he think 
 of dying, now a wonderful talisman had been given him 
 which was about to unlock the doors of worlds beyond his 
 own. 
 
 With fierce determination he rose from the seat unstead- 
 ily. And as he did so he saw the cold, cold light of the 
 14 203
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 morning paling the tops of the distant trees. He began to 
 move forward again. He would have to keep going some- 
 how if he was not to be overtaken by darkness and eclipse.' 
 Whatever he did, he must hold on to his identity. What- 
 ever he did, he must keep secure the treasure rare and 
 strange that was now within himself. 
 
 Suddenly in the light of the dawn, he made out a man's 
 figure coming towards him. It was a policeman. 
 
 "What place do they call this, mister?" 
 
 "Barnes Common." 
 
 They moved on slowly in their opposite ways.
 
 BOOK III 
 
 BEING 
 
 
 I 
 
 BARNES COMMON seemed a very large place. 
 The Sailor was afraid he would not be able to 
 keep on much longer, but he had learned endurance 
 in his six years before the mast. Weeks and months together 
 he had just kept on keeping on while he had sailed the 
 terrible seas. At that time there was no magic talisman 
 to hold him to his course, there was neither hope nor faith 
 of the world to be. But now it was otherwise. Surely 
 he had no reason to give in, just as a new heaven and a new 
 earth were opening before his eyes. 
 
 He came presently to a row of houses. A road was 
 beyond and traffic was passing along it. The hope of a 
 coffee stall sprang to his mind. He walked doggedly along 
 the road, until at a point where it was merged in an impor- 
 tant thoroughfare he came upon a cabman's shelter. And 
 there within, in answer to his faith, were the things he 
 sought. ~ Through the open door was a fire, a smell of 
 steaming fluids, of frying meats, and an honest bench on 
 which to enjoy them. 
 
 He asked no leave, but stumbled in and at the beck of 
 his powerfully stimulated senses ordered a kingly repast, 
 and spread both hands before the fire. Sausages and mashed 
 potatoes were brought to him and he sat down to eat, just 
 as a very cheerful looking cabman entered with a face of 
 205
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 professional red, and wearing apparel not unworthy of an 
 arctic explorer. 
 
 The cabman ordered a cup of cocoa and a "doorstep," 
 and that justice might be done to them sat on the bench 
 by the young man's side. A little while they ate in silence, 
 for both were very hungry. Then under the influence of 
 food and a good fire the cabman talked. His sociability 
 enabled the Sailor to ask an important question. 
 
 "Can you tell me, mister, of lodgings, clean and decent, 
 for a single man?" 
 
 "What sort o' lodgings are you wantin', mister?" The 
 cabman was favorably impressed by the young man's air of 
 politeness. 
 
 "Lodgings clean and decent," said the Sailor. 
 
 "I know that," said the cabman urbanely, "but what do 
 you want to pay fur 'em?" 
 
 The Sailor reflected. There were nineteen sovereigns 
 and twelve half-sovereigns in his belt; all the same, he was 
 enough of a landsman to know the value of money. 
 
 "I want to live cheap," he said, with extreme simplicity. 
 "Just as cheap as I can, and be clean and decent, too." 
 
 The cabman let his large wise eyes flow over the Sailor, 
 and quietly took his measure as became a veteran of the 
 town. 
 
 "Ever tried Bowdon House?" 
 
 The Sailor shook his head. 
 
 The cabman ruminated. 
 
 "Tizzey a day fur your cubicle an' the use o' the kitchen 
 fire." 
 
 The young man was not insulted, although the cabman 
 feared he might have been, so good were his clothes, so 
 gravely courteous his aspect. 
 
 "O' coarse," said the cabman, "it ain't Buckingham 
 Palace, it's no use purtendin' it is." 
 206
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "So long as it's clean and decent," said the Sailor. 
 
 "I give you my word for that. Never stayed there 
 myself, but I know them as has." 
 
 The Sailor nodded. 
 
 "O' course, it ain't the Sizzle. I don't say that all on 
 'em moves in high circles, that would be tellin' a lie, but if 
 you don't mind all sorts there's wuss homes, they tell me. 
 in this metropolus, than Bowdon House." 
 
 The young man said he would try it, anyway, if it wasn't 
 far. 
 
 "It's at the back o' Victoria," said the cabman. "Can't 
 miss it if you go sharp to the left at the second turnin' past 
 the station." 
 
 Henry Harper had to confess that he didn't know the 
 way to Victoria Station. 
 
 "It's quite easy," said the cabman. "Buss 14 that goes 
 by here will set you down at Victoria. Then do as I say, 
 or ask a bobby to put you right." 
 
 Armed with these instructions, Henry Harper presently 
 set out for Bowdon House. Feeling much better for a 
 good meal and human intercourse, he found it without 
 difficulty. Bowdon House was a large and somber building. 
 Its exterior rather abashed the Sailor. But a sure instinct 
 warned him that now he could not afford to be abashed by 
 /anything. Therefore he entered and boldly paid the sum 
 of sixpence for a vacant cubicle. 
 
 The .beds might not be equal to the Sizzle, but they were 
 clean and decent undoubtedly, and not too hard for a sailor. 
 You could have a bath for a penny, you could keep your 
 own private frying pan, you were allowed the use of the 
 kitchen range to cook any food you liked to buy, and a 
 comfortable place was provided where you could sit and 
 eat it. The company was mixed, it was true, as the cab- 
 man had said, but these were solid advantages, and the 
 207
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 chief of them at the moment, in the opinion of Henry 
 Harper, was that you could go to bed when you liked and 
 stay there forever if only you continued to pay your six- 
 pence a night. 
 
 The first thing the young man did was to have a hot 
 bath. He then hired for a penny a nightgown, as clean and 
 decent as his cubicle, and within a very short time was 
 in a sleep so long and deep that it banished entirely the 
 new fear that had crept into his brain. 
 
 About five o'clock in the evening he awoke a new man. 
 After a toilet as careful as the absence of a razor and a hair- 
 brush would permit, he found his way to the common room. 
 He felt extremely hungry, but the outlay of another six- 
 pence, brought him a pot of tea, some brown bread and but- 
 ter, and a slice of meat pie. 
 
 There was only one other patron in the common room, 
 and he at once attracted Henry Harper's curiosity. This 
 individual was engaged in toasting a muffin at the large and 
 clear fire, and even with the Sailor's experience of Miss 
 Foldal in this kind, he had never seen one of these delight- 
 ful articles dealt with in a manner of such sacerdotal del- 
 icacy. 
 
 A blue china plate was warming before the fire, and the 
 muffin was presently placed on it, soaked in butter in true 
 Miss Foldal style, and brought to table piping hot. The 
 young man had chosen a place as near the fire as he could 
 get, and the muffin expert took a place opposite, poured out 
 a brew of tea from his own blue china teapot, and to the 
 Sailor's amazement squeezed a little lemon juice into it. 
 
 This Sybarite was eating his first piece of muffin with an 
 air of feminine elegance when he suddenly caught the young 
 man's eye. The limpid glance seemed to stimulate his own 
 blue orb to a mild and calm curiosity. The Sybarite looked 
 the young man up and down, but continued to eat his muf- 
 208
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 fin with a kind of apostolic pleasantness, which somehow 
 recalled to Henry Harper the Reverend Rogers and a cer- 
 tain famous tea-party at the Brookfield Street Mission Hall 
 in his distant youth. 
 
 Presently, to Henry Harper's grave surprise, the muffin 
 eater was pleased to discourse a little of men and things. 
 
 The Sailor in his genuine modesty was flattered, more- 
 over he was charmed. Never in all his wanderings had he 
 heard a man discourse in this way. It might have been 
 Klondyke himself at times there was an odd resemblance 
 to that immortal in the occasional grace notes of the Syb- 
 arite. Yet it was a suggestion rather than a resemblance. 
 This was a kind of composite of Klondyke and the Rev- 
 erend Rogers, a Klondyke raised to a higher intellectual 
 power. 
 
 Of course, this was only one aspect of the Sybarite, and 
 that the least important, because with every allowance for 
 the sacred memory of the Reverend Rogers, the person 
 opposite was quite the most wonderful talker Henry Harper 
 had ever heard in his life. 
 
 Had the Sailor heard the music of Palestrina, which at 
 that period was a pleasure to come, he might have imagined 
 he was listening to it. The voice of the Sybarite was meas- 
 ured yet floating, his phrases were endless yet perfectly 
 rounded and definite, there was a note of weariness, older 
 than the world, yet there was a charm, a lucidity, a mellow 
 completeness that was perfectly amazing. The Sailor, with 
 a wonderful talisman now burning bright in his soul, was 
 enchanted. 
 
 This remarkable person owned, with a sort of frankness 
 which was not frankness at all, that there were just two 
 things he could do of practical utility. One, it seemed, was 
 to toast a muffin with anybody, the other was to make the 
 perfect cup of tea. Here he ended and here he began. He 
 209
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 had also the rather unacademic habit of quoting dead lan- 
 guages in a manner so remarkably impressive as to bewilder 
 the Sailor. 
 
 Henry Harper listened with round eyes. He devoured 
 the Sybarite. His talisman seemed to tell him that he was 
 on the verge of worlds denied to the common run of men. 
 This remarkable person had even a private language of his 
 own. He used words and phrases so charged with esoteric 
 meanings that they somehow seemed to make the Aladdin's 
 lamp burn brighter in the Sailor's soul. He had a knowl- 
 edge of books comprehensive and wonderful, of all ages and 
 countries apparently, yet when the young man ventured to 
 ask timidly, but with a sort of pride in his question, whether 
 he had read the "Pickwick Papers," the answer overthrew 
 him completely. 
 
 "God forbid," said the Sybarite. 
 
 Henry Harper was utterly defeated. And yet he was 
 charmed. Here was a depth far beyond Miss Foldal, who 
 had suggested that he should get a ticket for the Free 
 Library in order to be able to read Charles Dickens. 
 
 "I suppose, sir" the "sir" would have had the sanction 
 of Ginger, the perfect man of the world "I suppose, sir, 
 you don't think much of Charles Dickens?" 
 
 After all, that was what the Sybarite really meant. 
 
 "Not necessarily that. He is simply not in one's ethos, 
 don't you know." 
 
 The Sailor was baffled completely, but in some way he 
 was a shrewd young man. He had soon decided that it 
 would be wiser to listen than attempt to talk himself. 
 
 The Sybarite was fastidious but he was not shy. He 
 liked to speak out of the depths of his wisdom to a fit audi- 
 ence if the spirit was on him. He knew that he talked 
 well, even beautifully; the immortal flair of the artist was 
 there; and in this strange young man with the deep eyes 
 210
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 was the perfect listener, and that was what the soul of the 
 Sybarite always demanded. 
 
 The Sailor listened with a kind of fascinated intensity; 
 also he watched all that the Sybarite did with a sense of 
 esthetic delight. His lightest movements, like his voice, 
 were ordered, feline, sacramental. It made no difference 
 whether he was toasting muffins, buttering them, or merely 
 eating them; whether he was pouring out tea or conveying 
 it in a blue china cup to his lips, it was all done in a man- 
 ner to suggest the very poetry of motion. And when it 
 came to a matter of rolling a cigarette, which it presently 
 did, the almost catlike grace of the long and slender hands 
 that were so clean and kept so perfectly, touched a chord 
 very deep in the Sailor. 
 
 The name of this wonderful person, as the Sailor learned 
 in the course of the next two days, was Mr. Esme Horrobin. 
 He had been formerly a fellow and tutor of Gamaliel Col- 
 lege, Oxford; he let out much pertaining to himself in the 
 most casual way in an exegesis which was yet so neutral that 
 it seemed to be more than wisdom itself. Also he did not 
 shrink from impartial consideration of an act which cir- 
 cumstances had imposed upon him. 
 
 "It was one's duty to resign, I assure you." As the 
 enchanted hours passed, the discourse of the Sybarite grew 
 more intimate, so rapt and so responsive was the young man 
 with the deep eyes in his elemental simplicity. "It was 
 most trying to have to leave one's warm bed in the middle 
 of winter at eight o'clock, to breakfast hastily, merely for 
 what? Merely to sustain an oaf from the public schools in 
 a death grapple with an idyll of Theocritus. There's a 
 labor of Sisyphus for you. We Horrobins are an old race; 
 who knows what mysteries we have profaned in the immor- 
 tal past! I hope I make myself clear." 
 
 Mr. Horrobin was not making himself at all clear, but 
 
 211
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 the Sailor was striving hard to keep track of him. The 
 Sybarite, a creature of intuitions when in the full enjoyment 
 of "his personal ethos," was ready to help him to do so. 
 
 "We Horrobins are what is called in the physical world 
 born-tired. We are as incapable of continuous effort as a 
 dram drinker is of total abstinence. This absurd cosmos of 
 airships and automobiles bores us to tears. A mere labor of 
 Sisyphus, I assure you, my dear fellow. The whole human 
 race striving to get to nowhere as fast as it can in order to 
 return as quickly as possible. And why? I will tell you. 
 Man himself has profaned the mysteries. The crime of 
 Prometheus is not yet expiated on our miserable planet. 
 Take my own case. I am fit for one thing only, and that is 
 to lie in bed smoking good tobacco with my books around 
 me, translating the 'Satyricon' of Petronius Arbiter. It 
 seems an absurd thing to say, but given the bed, the tobacco, 
 the books, and the right conjunction of the planetary bodies, 
 which in these matters is most essential, and I honestly be- 
 lieve I am able to delve deeper into the matchless style of 
 Petronius than any other person living or dead." 
 
 The Sailor was awed. The "Satyricon" of Petronius Ar- 
 biter was whole worlds away from Miss Foedal. 
 
 "Whether I shall ever finish my translation is not of the 
 slightest importance. Personally, I am inclined to think not. 
 That is one's own private labor of Sisyphus. It won me 
 a fellowship and ultimately lost it me. Let us assume that 
 I finish it. There is not a publisher or an academic body 
 in Europe or America that would venture to publish it. 
 Rome under Nero, my dear fellow, the feast of Trimalchio. 
 And assuming it is finished and assuming it is published, it 
 will be a thing entirely without value, either human or com- 
 mercial. And why? Because there is no absolute canon of 
 literary style existing in the world. It is one labor of Sisy- 
 phus the more for a man to say this is Petronius to a world 
 212
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 for whom Petronius can never exist. Do I make myself 
 clear?" 
 
 The Sailor was silent, but round eyes of wonder were 
 trained upon the blue-eyed, yellow-bearded face of Mr. Esme 
 Horrobin. The Sybarite, agreeably alive to the compliment, 
 sighed deeply. 
 
 "It may have been right to resign one's fellowship, yet 
 one doesn't say it was. It may not have been right, yet one 
 doesn't say it was not. At least, a fellowship of Gamaliel 
 in certain of its aspects is better than bear-leading the aris- 
 tocracy, and a person of inadequate resources is sometimes 
 driven even to that." 
 
 The next morning, the Sailor retrieved his bag from the 
 cloak room at Marylebone Station, to which he went by bus 
 from Victoria without much difficulty. He felt wonder- 
 fully better for his day's rest, and much fortified by the so- 
 ciety of Mr. Esme Horrobin. Friendship had always been 
 precious to Henry Harper. There was something in his na- 
 ture that craved for it, yet he had never been able to satisfy 
 the instinct easily. But this inspired muffin eater opened up 
 a whole world of new and gorgeous promise now that he 
 had Aladdin's lamp to read him by. Mr. Esme Horrobin 
 was what Klondyke would have called a high-brow. But 
 he was something more. He was a man who had the key 
 to many hidden things. 
 
 When the Sailor had brought his bag to Bowdon House, 
 the first thing he did was to find Marlow's Dictionary. 
 Miss Foldal had presented him with her own private copy 
 of this invaluable work, and the name Gwladys Foldal was 
 to be seen on the flyleaf. "Ethos" was the first word he 
 looked up, but it was not there. He then sought "oaf," 
 whose definition was fairly clear. Then he went on to "bear- 
 leading" and to "aristocracy." These proved less simple. 
 Their private meanings were plain, more or less, but to 
 213
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 correlate them was beyond the Sailor's powers, nor did 
 it fall within the scope of Marlow's Dictionary to explain 
 what the Sybarite meant when he spoke of bear-leading the 
 aristocracy. 
 
 II 
 
 HENRY HARPER'S acquaintance with Mr. Esme 
 Horrobin had important consequences. That gen- 
 tleman's interest deepened almost to a mild liking 
 for the young man. He was a type new to the Sybarite; 
 and he might have taken pleasure in his primitive attitude 
 to life had it been possible for such a developed mind to take 
 pleasure in anything. 
 
 The company at Bowdon House was certainly mixed, but 
 Mr. Esme Horrobin was a miracle of courtesy to all with 
 whom he came in contact. He had a smile and a nod for a 
 bricklayer's laborer, a bus conductor out of a billet, a de- 
 cayed clerk or a reformed pickpocket. No matter who they 
 were, his charming manners intrigued them, but also kept 
 them at their distance. When he fell into the language of 
 democracy, which he sometimes did for his own amusement, 
 it was always set off by an access of the patrician to his 
 general air. By this simple means he maintained the balance 
 of power in the body politic. He had grasped the fact 
 that every man is at heart a snob. Even the young man 
 who had followed the sea accepted Mr. Esme Horrobin's 
 estimate of Mr. Esme Horrobin. 
 
 Indeed, the Sailor was absorbing Mr. Esme Horrobin at 
 every pore. He felt it to be a liberal education to sit at 
 the same table, and when he went to his cubicle there were 
 at least half a dozen carefully remembered words to look 
 up in Marlow's Dictionary. But it would not do to linger 
 214
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 in the land of the lotus. He must find a means of earning 
 a living. 
 
 It occurred to the Sailor on the morning of his third day 
 at Bowdon House, that he might ask Mr. Horrobin for a 
 little advice on the matter. But he did not find it easy to 
 do so. The young man was very shy. It was one thing 
 to listen to Mr. Horrobin, but quite another to talk to him. 
 However, after tea on the third evening, when no one was 
 by, he screwed up courage and boldly asked whether Mr. 
 Horrobin knew of a billet for a chap who didn't mind hard 
 work, or how such a thing could be obtained. 
 
 Frankly Mr. Horrobin did not. It was the first time in 
 his life that he had been met by any such problem. The 
 problem for Mr. Horrobin had always been of a very differ- 
 ent kind. His tone seemed to express the unusual when he 
 asked the young man if he had any particular form of occu- 
 pation in view. 
 
 "I'd like something to do with literature, sir," said Henry 
 Harper, venturing timidly upon a new word. 
 
 "Ah." Mr. Horrobin scratched a yellow-whiskered chin. 
 It was very ironical that a young man who had asked 
 whether he read Dickens should now seek advice upon such 
 a matter. 
 
 "Do you mean reading literature, my dear fellow, writing 
 * literature, or selling literature?" 
 
 The young man explained very simply that it was the 
 selling" of literature he had in mind. 
 
 "Ah," said Mr. Esme Horrobin gravely. But he had a 
 kind heart. And if he really took to a person, which he 
 very seldom did, he had the sort of disposition that is mildly 
 helpful. And he had taken to this young man, therefore he 
 felt inclined to do what he could for him. 
 
 Mr. Horrobin rolled and lit a cigarette. After five min- 
 iites' hard thought inspiration came. Its impact was al- 
 215
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 most dramatic, except that in no circumstances was Mr, 
 Esme Horrobin ever dramatic. 
 
 "I really think," he said, "I must give you a line to 
 Rudge, my bookseller, in the Charing Cross Road. He is a 
 man who might help you ; at least he may know a man who 
 might help you. Yes, a little line to Rudge. Pray remind 
 me tomorrow." 
 
 The young man was filled with gratitude. But he al- 
 lowed his hopes to run too high. Even a little line to Rudge 
 the bookseller was not a thing to compass in this offhand 
 way. Tomorrow in the mouth of Mr. Esme Horrobin was 
 a very comprehensive term. It was Tomorrow that he was 
 going to complete his translation of the "Satyricon" of 
 Petronius; it was Tomorrow that he would return to the 
 world in which he was born ; it was Tomorrow that he would 
 rise earlier and forswear the practice of smoking and read- 
 ing in bed. Therefore, with the promised letter to Rudge 
 the bookseller burning a hole in his mind the young man 
 spent a very anxious tomorrow waiting for Mr. Esme Hor- 
 robin to emerge from his cubicle. 
 
 "No use asking for Mr. Orrobin," he was told finally 
 by the groom of the chambers, a man old and sour and by 
 nature the complete pessimist. "It's one of his days in bed. 
 He'll not put his nose outside his cubicle until tea time." 
 
 That discreet hour was on the wane before Mr. Horrobin 
 was to be seen at work with a kettle, a caddy, and a toast- 
 ing fork. Even then he was in such conversational feather 
 that it was nearly three hours later before the young man 
 was able to edge in a timid reminder. 
 
 "I have not forgotten," said Mr. Horrobin, all charm 
 and amenity. "But remind me tomorrow. I will write 
 most gladly to Rudge. He is quite a good fellow." 
 
 The Sailor grew desperate. It seemed impossible to live 
 through a second tomorrow of this kind. 
 216
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "If I get a bit of paper and an envelope and a pen and 
 ink, will you have any objection to writing the letter now, 
 sir?" 
 
 "My dear fellow" the grace notes were languid and 
 delicate "I shall be delighted. But why tonight? It 
 hardly seems worth while to trouble about it tonight." 
 
 But the young man rose from the common room table 
 with almost a sensation of fear upon him, and ran to his 
 cubicle, where all the materials for a little line to Rudge 
 the bookseller had been in readiness since eight o'clock 
 that morning. 
 
 Mr. Horrobin smiled when they were brought to him, a 
 smile half weariness, half indulgent patronage. Even then 
 it was necessary to consume two more cigarettes before he 
 could take the extreme course of addressing Rudge the book- 
 seller. Finally, he was addressed as follows: 
 
 Mr. Esme Horrobin presents his compliments to Mr. 
 Rudge, and will be glad if he can find employment on his 
 staff, or on that of any bookselling friends, for the bearer, 
 whom he will find clean, respectful, obliging, and anxious to 
 improve himself. 
 
 The letter was composed with much care and precision, 
 and written in a hand of such spiderlike elegance as hardly 
 to be legible, notwithstanding that every "t" was crossed 
 and every comma in its place. Then came the business of 
 sealing- it. Mr. Horrobin produced a tiny piece of red seal- 
 ing wax from some unsuspected purlieu of himself; a pre- 
 lude to a delicately solemn performance with a wax vesta, 
 which he took from a silver box at the end of his watch 
 chain, and a signet ring which he gracefully removed from 
 a finger of his right hand. 
 
 217
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 III 
 
 THE next morning, before nine o'clock, armed with a 
 red-sealed document addressed in a kind of ultra- 
 neat Chinese, "To Mr. Rudge, Bookseller, Charing 
 Cross Road," the Sailor set out upon one phase the more of 
 an adventurous life. 
 
 It was not easy to find the Charing Cross Road, and 
 when even he had done so, Mr. Rudge was not there. Book- 
 sellers were in abundance on both sides of the street. Mr. 
 Hogan was there, Messrs. Cook and Hunt, Messrs. Lewis 
 and Grieve; in fact, there were booksellers by the score, but 
 Mr. Rudge was not of these. In the end, however, patience 
 was rewarded. There was a tiny shop on the right near the 
 top of the long street, which bore the magic name on its 
 front in letters so faded as to be almost undecipherable. 
 
 Only one person was in the shop, a small and birdlike 
 man to whom Henry Harper presented Mr. Horrobin's 
 letter. The recipient was apparently impressed by it. 
 
 "Mr. Horrobin, I see," said Mr. Rudge the bookseller 
 the small and birdlike man was not less than he in a tone 
 of reverence as he broke the seal. 
 
 A man of parts, Mr. Rudge was proud of an acquaint- 
 ance which might almost be considered non-professional. 
 When out of funds, Mr. Horrobin would sell Mr. Rudge 
 a classic at a very little below its original cost, and when in 
 funds would buy it back at a price somewhat less than that 
 at which he had sold it. Mr. Rudge did not gain pecuniarily 
 by the transaction, but in the course of the deal Mr. Horro- 
 bin would discourse so charmingly upon the classics in gen- 
 eral that Mr. Rudge felt it was as good as a lecture at the 
 Royal Institution. Although not a scholar himself in the 
 academic sense, he had a ripe regard for those who were. 
 218
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 In the mind of his bookseller, Mr. Horrobin stood for Cul- 
 ture with a very large letter. 
 
 Mr. Rudge was not in urgent need of an assistant. But 
 he had felt lately that he would like one. He was getting 
 old. It seemed a special act of grace that Mr. Horrobin 
 should have sent him this young man. 
 
 Perhaps it was Mr. Rudge's reverence for Mr. Horrobin 
 which committed him to a bold course. It was stretching 
 a point, but Mr. Horrobin was Mr. Horrobin, and in the 
 special circumstances it seemed the part of homage for pure 
 intellect to do what he could for the bearer. Thus, after a 
 few minutes' consideration of the matter, Henry Harper was 
 engaged at a salary of twenty-five shillings a week to be in 
 attendance at the shop from eight till seven, and eight till two- 
 Saturdays. 
 
 This was a stroke of real luck. A special providence had 
 seemed to watch over the Sailor ever since he had left the 
 Margaret Carey. The situation that had been offered was 
 exactly the one he would have chosen. The mere sight 
 of a shop crammed with treasures ancient and mysterious 
 was like a glimpse of an enchanted land. The previous day 
 he had bought a copy of the "Arabian Nights" for a shilling. 
 Such facility had he now gained in reading that he had 
 dipped into its pages with a sharp sense of delight. No. 
 249, Charing Cross Road, was a veritable Cave of the Forty 
 Robbers. 
 
 These endless rows of shelves were magic casements open- 
 ing on fairyland. The Sailor felt that the turning point 
 of his life had come. A cosmos of new worlds was spread 
 before him now. Moreover, it was his to enter and enjoy. 
 
 He had come, as it seemed, miraculously, upon a period 
 
 of expansion and true growth. His duties in the shop were 
 
 light. This was one of those quiet businesses that offer 
 
 many intervals of leisure. Also Mr. Rudge, as became .one 
 
 15 219
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 with a regard for the things of the mind, gave his assistant 
 a chance "to improve himself" in accordance with Mr. Hor- 
 robin's suggestion. Perhaps that happy and fortunate phrase 
 had a great deal to do with the new prosperity. Mr. Rudge 
 had been flattered by such a request coming from a man 
 of such distinction ; he felt he must live up to it by allowing 
 Henry Harper to improve himself as much as possible. 
 
 The Sailor had entered Elysium. But he had the good 
 sense to walk warily. He knew now that it was over-read- 
 ing, the danger against which Ginger had solemnly warned 
 him, that had brought about the Blackhampton catastrophe. 
 He must always be on his guard, yet now the freedom was 
 his of all these magic shelves, it was by no means easy to 
 stick to that resolve. 
 
 Mr. Rudge dwelt at the back of the shop. Most of his 
 time was passed in a small, dark, and stuffy sitting-room, 
 where he ate his meals and applied himself to Culture at every 
 reasonable opportunity. Now that he had an assistant, he 
 was able to bestow more time than ever upon the things 
 of the mind. He spent half his days and half his nights taking 
 endless notes, in a meticulous hand, for a great work he had 
 conceived forty-two years ago when he had migrated from 
 Birmingham to the metropolis. This magnum opus was to 
 be called "A History of the World," and was to consist of 
 forty volumes, with a supplementary volume as an index, 
 making forty-one in all. Each was to have four hundred and 
 eighty pages, which were to be divided into twenty-four chap- 
 ters. There were to be no illustrations. 
 
 Four decades had passed since the golden hour in which 
 this scheme was born. In a spare room above the shop 
 were a number of large tin trunks full of notes, for the great 
 work, all very carefully coded and docketed. These were 
 the fruits of forty-two years' amazing industry. Every year 
 these labors grew more comprehensive, more unceasing. But 
 220
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 the odd thing was that only the first sentence of the first vol- 
 ume of the opus was yet in being. It ran, " 'In the beginning,' 
 says Holy Writ, 'was the Word.' " And even that pregnant 
 sentence had yet to be put on paper. At present, it lay like 
 the text of the History itself, in the head of the author. 
 
 With Henry Harper to mind the shop, the historian was 
 able to devote more time to the work of his life. This was 
 a fortunate matter, because Mr. Rudge was already within a 
 few months of seventy, and forty volumes and an index had 
 yet to be written. As a fact, considerable portions of the 
 index were already in existence; and during Henry Harper's 
 first week in the front shop it received a valuable accession 
 in the form of "Bulrushes, Vol. IX., pp. 243-245. Moses in, 
 Vol. III., p. 1 20." Careful and voluminous notes upon Bul- 
 rushes, based upon an unknown work that had lately arrived 
 in a consignment of second-hand books from Sheffield, went 
 to line the bottom of yet another large trunk which had 
 been added recently to the attic above the shop. 
 
 IV 
 
 THE day soon came when Henry Harper said good-by 
 to Mr. Horrobin and Bowdon House. Mr. Rudge 
 took a fancy to him from the first. It may have been 
 his high credentials partly ; no one could have been equipped 
 with- a better start in life than the imprimatur of such a 
 scholar and such a gentleman as Mr. Esme Horrobin. But 
 at the same time there was much to like in the young man 
 himself. He was diligent and respectful and his heart was 
 in his work; also, and perhaps this counted more with Mr. 
 Rudge than anything else, he was very anxious to improve 
 himself. And Mr. Rudge, who was an altruist as well as 
 a lover of Culture, was very anxious to improve him. 
 221
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Sometimes Mr. Rudge had a feeling of loneliness, not- 
 withstanding the immense labor to which he had dedicated 
 his life. This was due in a measure to the fact that a 
 nephew he had adopted had taken ta sudden distaste for the 
 Charing Cross Road, and had now been twelve months at 
 sea. A bedroom he had occupied above the shop was vacant ; 
 and the use of it was presently offered to Henry Harper. 
 
 The young man accepted it gratefully. It was one more 
 rare stroke of luck; he was now free to dwell in the land of 
 faerie all day and all night. It seemed as if this was to be 
 a golden time. 
 
 In a sense it was. Aladdin's lamp was fed continually 
 and kept freshly trimmed. The Sailor began to make sur- 
 prising progress in his studies, and his kind master, when 
 not too completely absorbed in his own titanic labors after 
 supper, would sometimes help him. In fact, it was Mr. 
 Rudge who first introduced him to grammar. Klondyke had 
 never mentioned it. Miss Foldal had never mentioned it. 
 Mr. Horrobin had never mentioned it. Mr. Rudge it was 
 who first brought grammar home to Henry Harper. 
 
 Reading was important, said Mr. Rudge, also writing, 
 also arithmetic, but these things, excellent in themselves, 
 paled in the presence of grammar. You simply could not do 
 without it. He could never have planned his "History of 
 the World" in forty volumes excluding the index, let alone 
 have prepared a concrete foundation for such a work, without 
 a thorough knowledge of this science. It was the key to all 
 Culture, and Culture was the crown of all wisdom. 
 
 On the shelves of the shop were several works on the sub- 
 ject. And Mr. Rudge soon began to spare an hour after 
 supper every night from his own labors, in order that Henry 
 Harper might acquire the key to the higher walks of mental 
 experience. 
 
 The young man took far less kindly to grammar than he 
 
 222
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 did to reading, writing, arithmetic, or even geography, which 
 Miss Foldal considered one of the mere frills of erudition. 
 He could see neither rhyme nor reason in this new study; 
 but Mr. Rudge assured him it was so important that he felt 
 bound to persevere. 
 
 Moreover, these efforts brought their reward. They kept 
 him certain hours each day from the things for which he 
 had a passion, so that when he felt he could turn to them 
 again his delight was the more intense. 
 
 The books he read were very miscellaneous, but Mr. 
 Rudge had too broad a mind to exercise a censorship. In 
 his view, as became a bookseller pur sang, all books were 
 good, but some were better than others. 
 
 For instance, works of the imagination were less good than 
 other branches of literature. In Volume XXXIX of the 
 "History of the World" a chapter was to be devoted to 
 Shakespeare, pp. 260284, wherein homage would be paid to 
 a remarkable man, but it would be shown that the adulation 
 lavished upon one who relied so much on imagination was out 
 of all proportion to that received by Hayden, the author 
 of the "Dictionary of Dates." Without that epoch-making 
 work the "History of the World" could not have been un- 
 dertaken. 
 
 Ill-assorted the Sailor's reading might be, but this was 
 a time of true development. Day by day Aladdin's lamp 
 burned brighter. There was little cause to regret Black- 
 hampton, dire tragedy as his flight must ever be. When he 
 had been a fortnight with Mr. Rudge he tried to write Gin- 
 ger a letter. 
 
 To begin it, however, was one thing; to complete it an- 
 other. It seemed so light and callous in comparison with 
 his depth of feeling that he tore it up. He was disgraced 
 forever in the sight of Ginger and his peers. 
 
 Therefore he decided to write to Miss Foldal instead. 
 223
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 But when he took pen in hand, somehow he lost courage. 
 He could have no interest for her now. It would be best 
 to forget Blackhampton, to put it, if possible, out of his life. 
 
 Still he felt rather lonely sometimes. Mr. Rudge was 
 wonderfully kind, but he lived in a world of his own. And 
 the only compensations Henry Harper now had for the 
 crowded epoch of Blackhampton were the books in the shop 
 which he devoured ravenously, and the daily visits of the 
 charlady, Mrs. Greaves. 
 
 For many years she had been the factotum of Mr. Elihu 
 Rudge. Every morning she made his fire, cooked his meals, 
 swept and garnished his home, and "did for him" generally. 
 She was old, thin, somber and battered, and she had the 
 depth of a bottomless abyss. 
 
 Mrs. Greaves was a treasure. Mr. Rudge depended upon 
 her in everything. She was an autocrat, but women of her 
 dynamic power are bound to be. She despised all men, 
 frankly and coldly. In the purview of Mrs. Caroline Agnes 
 Greaves, man was a poor thing. Woman who could get 
 round him, who could walk over him, who could set him up 
 and put him down, merely allowed him to take precedence in 
 order that she might handle him to better advantage. She 
 had a great contempt for an institution that was no "use 
 any way," and to this law of nature it was not to be ex- 
 pected that "a nine pence to the shilling" creature like Mr. 
 Henry Harper would provide an exception. 
 
 ONE evening the Sailor made a discovery. At first, 
 however, he was far from grasping what it meant. 
 Like many things intimately concerned with fate, it 
 seemed a trivial and commonplace matter. It was pres- 
 224
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 ently to change the current of his life, but it was not until 
 long after the change was wrought that he saw the hand of 
 destiny. 
 
 After a week of delight he turned the last page of "Vanity 
 Fair" by the famous author, William Makepeace Thackeray, 
 the rival and contemporary of Charles Dickens, the author 
 of the "Pickwick Papers." It was within a few minutes of 
 midnight, and as Mr. Rudge, engaged upon copious notes of 
 the life of Charles XII of Sweden, made no sign of going 
 to bed, Henry Harper determined to allow himself one 
 more hour. 
 
 Therefore he took a candle and entered the front shop 
 with a sense of adventure. First he put back "Vanity Fair," 
 Volume II, on its shelf, and then raising his candle on high, 
 with the eagle glance of stout Cortez, he surveyed all the 
 new worlds about him. With a thrill of joy he stood ponder- 
 ing which kingdom he should enter. Should it be "The 
 Origin of Species," by Charles Darwin, which his master 
 said was an important work and had been laid under con- 
 tribution for the History? Should it be the "Queens of 
 England," by Agnes Strickland, also several times to be 
 quoted in the History? Or should it be Volume CXLI of 
 Brown s Magazine, 2s. gd., re-bound with part of the July 
 number missing? 
 
 By pure chance the choice fell upon Brown's Magazine, 
 incomplete as it was, and in its outward seeming entirely com- 
 monplace. He took the volume from its shelf, beat the dust 
 out of it, and carried it into the sitting-room. 
 
 He began to read at the first page. This happened to be 
 the opening of a serial story, "The Adventures of George 
 Gregory; A Tale of the High Seas," by Anon. And the 
 tale proved so entrancing that that night the young man did 
 not go to bed until it was nearly time to get up again. 
 
 Without being aware of it he had found his kingdom. 
 225
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Here were atmosphere and color, space and light. Here 
 was the life he had known and realized, set forth in the 
 vicarious glory of the printed page. For many days to come 
 he could think of little save "The Adventures of George 
 Gregory." This strange tale of the high seas, over which 
 his master shook his head sadly when it was shown to him, 
 declaring it to be a work of the imagination and therefore 
 of very small account, had a glamour quite extraordinary for 
 Henry Harper. It brought back the Margaret Carey and his 
 years of bitter servitude. It conjured up Mr. Thompson and 
 the Chinaman, the Old Man and the Island of San Pedro. 
 
 With these august shades raised again in the mind of the 
 Sailor, "The Adventures of George Gregory" gained an 
 authority they could not otherwise have had. In many of its 
 details the story was obviously inaccurate. Sometimes Anon 
 made statements about the Belle Fortune, the name of the 
 ship, and the Pacific Isles, upon one of which it was wrecked, 
 that almost made Henry Harper doubt whether George 
 Gregory had ever been to sea at all. However, he soon 
 learned that it was his duty to crush these unworthy sus- 
 picions and to yield entirely to the wonderful feast of incident 
 spread before him. 
 
 Charles Dickens, and even W. M. Thackeray, for all his 
 knowledge of the world, were poor things compared with 
 Anon. It was a real misfortune that the part of the July 
 number of Brown s Magazine which was missing contained 
 an installment of "The Adventures," but there was no help 
 for it. Moreover, having realized the fact, the gift of the 
 gods, Aladdin's lamp, came to the assistance of the Sailor. 
 
 With the help of the magic talisman it was quite easy 
 to fill in the missing part which contained the adventures of 
 poor George when marooned, not on the Island of San Pedro, 
 but on an island in the southern seas. There would certainly 
 be serpents, and for that reason he would have to keep out of 
 226
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 the trees; and although the July number was not able to 
 supply the facts, once you had Aladdin's lamp it was a very 
 simple matter to make good the omission. 
 
 One thing leads to another. ''The Adventures of George 
 Gregory," imperfect as they were, fastened such a to rip on the 
 mind of Henry Harper, that one dull Monday afternoon in 
 March, when he sat in the shop near the oil-stove waiting 
 for an infrequent customer, a great thought came to him. 
 Might it not be possible to improve upon George Gregory 
 with the aid of the talisman and his own experience? 
 
 It was a very daring thought, but he was sustained in it 
 by the conclusion to which he had come: the work of Anon, 
 exciting and ingenious as it certainly was, was not the high 
 seas as the Sailor had once envisaged them. The color, the 
 mystery, the discomfort, the horror were not really there. 
 Even the marooning of poor George upon the Island of Juan 
 Fernandez did not thrill your blood as it ought to have 
 done. True, it could be urged that the part containing the 
 episode was missing; but in no case would it have been pos- 
 sible to equal in horror and intensity the marooning of Sailor 
 upon the Island of San Pedro with serpents in every tree 
 around him, although with equal truth it might be urged by 
 the skeptical that the incident never took place at all. 
 
 "Never took place at all!" lisped Aladdin's lamp in magic 
 syllables. "Pray, what do you mean? It certainly took 
 place in your experience, and in the opinion of your learned 
 master who is writing a history of the world in forty vol- 
 umes, that is the only thing that matters." 
 
 A flash of the talisman was soon to raise a bottle of ink 
 and a quire of foolscap. Therefore one evening after supper, 
 Mr. Rudge, still at Charles XII of Sweden, was startled 
 painfully when "The Adventures of Dick Smith on the High 
 Seas," by Henry Harper, Chapter One, was shown to him. 
 It was a fall, but his master was too kind to say so. These 
 227
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 misspent hours could have been used for a further enrich- 
 ment of the mind. He might have added to his knowledge 
 of grammar. He might have ventured upon the study of 
 shorthand itself, a science of which Mr. Rudge never ceased 
 to deplore his own ignorance. However, he said nothing, 
 and went on with the great work. 
 
 Thus, not realizing the true feelings of his master, the 
 young man continued to supplement the entrancing but in- 
 complete "Adventures of George Gregory" with his own 
 experience. The strange tale grew at the back of the genie 
 v/ho tended the lamp, and with it grew the soul of Henry 
 Harper. In this new and wonderful realm he had entered 
 it seemed that the Sailor had surely found his kingdom. Deep 
 down in himself were latent faculties which he had not known 
 were there. They were now springing forth gloriously into 
 the light. 
 
 All his life he had been a dreamer of dreams; now the 
 power was his of making them come true, he had a world 
 of his own in which to live. He was only half awake as 
 yet to the world around him; and this arrest of growth was 
 for a time his weakness and his strength. It is impossible, 
 it is said, to touch pitch and not be defiled. The worth 
 of that aphorism was about to be tried by the clairvoyant 
 soul of Henry Harper. 
 
 At this time, while he was drawing very painfully and 
 yet rapturously upon his inner life, he was like an expanding 
 flower. All his leisure was not spent in the back parlor 
 at No. 249, Charing Cross Road. There were hours when 
 he walked abroad into the streets of the great city. 
 
 Much was hidden from his eyes as yet. The truth was it 
 was not his own great city in which he walked. He gazed 
 and saw, listened and heard in a mirage of fanciful ignorance. 
 A life of unimaginable squalor and hardship had not been 
 able to slay the genie sleeping in that elemental soul. But it 
 228
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 had yet to get its range of values in the many worlds 
 around it. 
 
 One Sunday morning in the spring, in one of his enchanted 
 walks about the city in the pursuit of knowledge, he chanced 
 to enter Hyde Park. It was the hour when the churches of 
 the neighborhood disgorged their fashionable congregations. 
 Here, as he sat near the statue of Achilles and watched the 
 brilliant throng pass by, a feeling of awe and bewilderment 
 overcame him. He had never realized before that his fel- 
 low occupants of the planet could be so wonderful. Here 
 was a significance, a beauty, a harmony of aspect beyond 
 anything he had imagined to be possible. The fine-ladyhood 
 of Miss Foldal was nothing in comparison with that queening 
 it all around him. Even the quality of Mr. Esme Horrobin 
 paled in luster. This was a very remarkable world into 
 which he had strayed. He had almost a sense of guilt at 
 rinding himself there. With such clothes as he wore and such 
 a humility of heart as he had, he had clearly no right of 
 entry to this paradise. But there he was with every nerve 
 alive, and the scene burned itself vividly into his heart and 
 brain. 
 
 These gorgeous beings with their kingliness of mien, these 
 children of the sun who spoke with the accent of the gods 
 meant much more to the primitive soul of Henry Harper 
 than as yet it could understand. In the intoxication of the 
 hour, with the sun and the birds, the trees, the green earth, 
 the "bright flowers paying their homage to the grace and 
 beauty of his countrywomen, he felt like an angel who has 
 fallen out of heaven, who after aeons of time in a bottomless 
 hell is permitted to see again a fair heritage that once was his. 
 
 The genie had unlocked another door. Henry Harper 
 was now in a world of romance. In order to know what 
 these wonderful beings truly were he listened eagerly for frag- 
 ments of their talk as they passed by. All of a sudden there 
 229
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 came miraculously a voice that had a tang of ocean in it. 
 There and then was he flung out of Hyde Park to the deck 
 of the Margaret Carey. 
 
 Leaping at the sound of a laugh, a full-chested music the 
 Sailor could never forget, he saw, a few yards off, the on- 
 coming figures of a man and a girl. Both were tall and 
 young and splendid; both seemed to be dressed in the last 
 cry of fashion. Moreover they bore themselves with the 
 assured grace of a sweet ship under canvas. 
 
 The pair were clearly brother and sister, and the figure 
 of the man, at least, was extraordinarily familiar to Henry 
 Harper. Yet almost before he had realized them, they were 
 level with him. It was not until they were actually past the 
 seat on which he sat that there came a flash of recognition. 
 The man was Klondyke. 
 
 For an instant the heart of the Sailor stood still. The 
 immortal had almost touched his knee, yet he was yards 
 away already. But Klondyke it was, laughing his great 
 note and rolling out his rich and peculiar dialect. It was 
 Klondyke in a top hat and a tail coat, looking as if he had 
 come out of a bandbox. Who could believe that such fault- 
 less magnificence had been washed habitually out of its berth 
 in the half-deck of the Margaret Carey? 
 
 He did not look a bit older than when the Sailor had seen 
 him last, that unhappy six years ago when his friend shook 
 him by the hand, told him to stick to his reading and writing, 
 and then started to walk across Asia. And in that time 
 Klondyke did not appear to have changed at all. He had the 
 same brown, large-featured face, the same keen and cheerful 
 eye, the same roll in his gait, and that cool, indefinable, you- 
 be-damned air that was both admired and resented aboard 
 the Margaret Carey. 
 
 By the time the Sailor had recovered from his surprise, 
 Klondyke was out of sight. A strong impulse then came 
 230
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 upon Henry Harper to go after his friend and declare him- 
 self. But a feeling of timidity defeated him. Besides, he 
 understood more fully at this moment than ever before that 
 there were whole continents between such a man as Klondyke 
 and such a man as Henry Harper. 
 
 VI 
 
 THE emotions of the Sailor were many and conflicting 
 as he made his way back to Charing Cross Road to 
 the homely meal which Mrs. Greaves provided for 
 his master and himself. A long afternoon and evening fol- 
 lowed in which Dick Smith and the brigantine Excelsior 
 roamed the high seas. 
 
 Infinite pains had now brought the narrative to Chapter 
 Six. But for some days progress was very slow. The 
 figure of Klondyke held the thoughts of the Sailor. Surely 
 it was cowardice not to have made himself known. It was 
 treason to assume that his friend, in spite of the wonderful 
 girl by his side, would not have been glad to see him again. 
 Yet was it ? That was the half formed fear which tormented 
 him. Klondyke had forgotten his existence: so much was 
 clear because he had almost touched his knee as he went by. 
 And why should he remember him? Who was he that he 
 should be remembered by such a man as Klondyke? The 
 tale~of the high seas had a bad week. The Sailor was held 
 in thrall by an emanation from the past. How Klondyke 
 would have roared had he known what he was at! Somehow 
 it set the blood tingling in Henry Harper's ears to reflect that 
 it was he who a few brief years ago had first introduced him 
 to reading and writing. 
 
 Do as he would, it was not a propitious hour for the story 
 of Dick Smith and the brigantine Excelsior. And when the 
 231
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 next Sunday came he had to decide whether or not to go to 
 Hyde Park in the hope of seeing the immortal. Finally, in 
 a state of utter misgiving, he went. This time, although he 
 sat a long hour on a seat near the statue of Achilles, there 
 was never a sign of him. Yet he was content to be disap- 
 pointed, for the longer he sat the more clearly he knew that 
 cowardice would defeat him again should Klondyke and his 
 attendant nymph appear. 
 
 Henry Harper was coming now r to a phase in which ladies 
 were to play their part. Mrs. Greaves had a niece, it seemed. 
 From brilliant accounts furnished from time to time he 
 learned that she was a strikingly gifted creature, not only 
 endowed with beauty, but also with brains in a very high 
 degree. 
 
 "Miss Cora Dobbs," in the words of her aunt, "was an 
 actress by profession, and she had done so well in it that 
 she had a flat of her own round the corner in the Avenue. 
 Toffs as understood Cora's merit thought 'ighly of her talent. 
 She could dance and she could sing, and she earned such 
 good money that she had a nest-egg put by." 
 
 Henry Harper was at first too absorbed in his work to 
 pay much attention to the charlady's discourses upon her 
 niece. Besides, had he not known Miss Gwladys Foldal who 
 had played in Shakespeare and been admitted to an intimacy 
 of a most intellectual kind ? The indifference of Mr. Harper 
 seemed to pique Mrs. Greaves. She often recurred to the 
 subject of Miss Dobbs; moreover, she seemed anxious for 
 the young man to realize that "although she w r as the niece of 
 one as didn't pretend to be anythink, Cora herself was a 
 lady." 
 
 Such statements were not really necessary. In the eyes 
 
 of Mr. Harper every woman was a lady more or less, even if 
 
 to that rule there must always be one signal exception. He 
 
 had a deep-rooted chivalry for Mrs. Greaves' sex. He even 
 
 232
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 treated her, flat-chested, bearded and ferret-like as she was, 
 with an instinctive courtesy which she at once set down as 
 weakness of character. 
 
 For a reason Mr. Harper did not try to fathom just now 
 he was far too deep in his task to give much thought to the 
 matter Mrs. Greaves seemed most anxious that he should 
 make the acquaintance of Miss Cora Dobbs. One reason, 
 it is true, she gave. "Mr. Arper was a snail as was too much 
 in his shell. He wanted a bright and knowing girl like 
 Cora to tote him around a bit and teach him not to be 
 afraid of life." 
 
 Mrs. Greaves had such a contempt for Mr. Harper's sex 
 that her solicitude was rather strange. As for its two speci- 
 mens for whom she "did" daily, the emotion they inspired 
 was one of deadly cynicism. In her razor-like judgment they 
 were as soft as pap. It was therefore the more remarkable 
 that she should now take such an interest in the welfare 
 of the younger man. 
 
 What was he writing? Lips of cautious curiosity were 
 always asking the question. A book! She was greatly in- 
 terested in books and had always been since she had "done" 
 for a gentleman who got fifty pounds for every one that he 
 wrote. What did Mr. Harper expect to get by it? 
 
 It had not occurred to Mr. Harper that he would get any- 
 thing by it. 
 
 "Why write it then?" she asked with acrid surprise. 
 WKy get up so early and sit up so late? Why use all 
 that good ink and expensive paper if he didn't expect to get 
 something out of it? 
 
 The young man was writing it because he felt he must. 
 
 "I sometimes think you must be a reg'lar soft-biled un," 
 said Mrs. Greaves, with an air of personal affront. "I do, 
 honest. Wasting your time like that . . . and mine as 
 well!" 
 
 233
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 At that moment, however, the Sailor was far too deep 
 in Chapter Eighteen to attend to the charlady. His total 
 lack of interest sent her in a huff to the back kitchen. Yet 
 she was not cast down altogether. He was more of a half- 
 bake than she had guessed, that was all. 
 
 VII 
 
 NEXT morning a lady walked into the shop. She 
 was tall and stout, beaming and fashionable. The 
 first detail of a striking, even resplendent person- 
 ality which caught the young man's eye was her boots. 
 These w r ere long, narrow, perilously high in the heel, they 
 had black and white checked uppers, and a pair of fat feet 
 had been buttoned into them. 
 
 "I want 'Etiquette for Ladies/ please. It's in the window. 
 A shilling. Yellow cover." 
 
 It was not the voice the young man had heard in Hyde 
 Park, nor was it the voice of Miss Foldal ; on the contrary, 
 it was direct, searching, rather aggressive in quality. There 
 was ease and confidence in it, there was humor and archness. 
 It was a voice of hyper-refinement, of Miss Foldal receiving 
 company, raised to a higher, more dominant power. 
 
 "Yes, that's the one. By a Member of the Aristocracy. 
 Ait least it says it is. And if it isn't, I get my money back, 
 Jon't I?" 
 
 The flash of teeth and the smile that followed startled 
 the young man considerably. He blushed to the roots of his 
 hair. This was a new kind of lady altogether and he didn't 
 know in the least how he was going to cope with her. 
 
 "Thanks very much." Elegantly the sum of one shilling 
 was disbursed from a very smart reticule. 
 
 That, however, was not the conclusion of the incident. 
 234
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Excuse me," said the lady, "but you are Mr. Harper, 
 aren't you?" 
 
 Blushing again he admitted very humbly that he was. 
 
 "Yes, you look clever. I'm Cora Dobbs. You know 
 Auntie, I think." 
 
 With a blush deepening to a hue that was quite nice the 
 young man said he knew Miss Dobbs' aunt. 
 
 "She's a rum one, isn't she?" The sudden friendliness 
 was overpowering. 
 
 The young man, not knowing what to say, said nothing. 
 Thus far he had been on the high seas with Dick Smith 
 and the brigantine Excelsior, but he was quickly coming to 
 dry land, to London, to the Charing Cross Road. So this 
 was the niece of whom Mrs. Greaves thought so much. 
 Henry Harper could understand the charlady's pride in her, 
 but it was very surprising that she should be the niece of 
 Mrs. Greaves. She was something totally different. In 
 manner she was even more refined than Miss Foldal herself, 
 although in some ways she had a slight resemblance to his 
 good fairy. But Miss Dobbs had a candor, a humor and a 
 charm quite new in Henry Harper's very limited social ex- 
 perience. She was really most agreeable; also her clothes, 
 if not exactly Hyde Park, were so fine that they must have 
 cost a great deal of money. 
 
 So much for Miss Dobbs in the sight of Mr. Harper. As 
 for Mr. Harper in the sight of Miss Dobbs, that was a 
 very-different matter. He was not bad looking; he was tall, 
 well-made, clean, his eyes were good. But their queer ex- 
 pression could only mean that he was as weak as water 
 and as green as grass. Evidently he hardly knew he had 
 come on to the earth. Also he was as shy as a baby and his 
 trousers wanted ironing badly. 
 
 "I have heard quite a lot about you, Mr. Harper, from 
 my aunt." 
 
 16 235
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 It was a little surprising that a creature so fashionable 
 should own an aunt so much the reverse. Even Mr. Harper, 
 who tad hardly begun to get a sense of perspective, felt 
 the two ladies were as wide asunder as the poles. Not 
 "jf course that Mrs. Greaves was an "ordinary" char, he had 
 her own assurance of that. She was a kind of super- 
 charlady who "did" for barristers and professional gentle- 
 men, cooked their meals, supervised their bachelor establish- 
 ments, and allowed them to share her pride in a distinguished 
 niece. 
 
 Had Mr. Harper been a more sophisticated young man 
 he must have felt the attitude of the niece to be admirable. 
 There was not a shade of false shame when she spoke of her 
 aunt. Miss Cora Dobbs was too frankly of the world to 
 suffer any vicarious embarrassment. She was amused with a 
 relationship thrust upon her by an ironical providence, and 
 that was all. 
 
 "I hear you are writing a book." 
 
 That was a false move. Mr. Harper was only able to 
 blush vividly and to make a kind of noise at the back of his 
 throat. 
 
 "I have a great friend who is writing one." Miss Dobbs 
 hastened to repair a tactical mistake. "Hers is reminiscences. 
 I am helping with a few of mine. I dare say Auntie has told 
 you I have been on the stage?" 
 
 Mr. Harper had been told that. 
 
 "Don't you think it's a good idea? My friend gives her 
 name because she married a lord, but I'm to do the donkey- 
 work. It would be telling if I told you her name, but don't 
 you think it's business?" 
 
 Mr. Harper thought, not very audibly, that it was. 
 
 "One of our girls at the Friv., Cassie Smallpiece, who 
 married Lord Bargrave, you know . . ." 
 
 . . . Mr. Harper did not know, but Miss Dobbs had 
 236
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 already struck such a note of intimacy that he somehow felt 
 he ought to have known. . . . 
 
 "... Made quite a pot of money out of hers. Of course 
 there was scandal in Cassie's. Cassie was rather warm pas- 
 try. But there'll be none in ours, although I expect that'll 
 be money out of our pockets." 
 
 Mr. Harper hoped such would not be the case. 
 
 "Bound to be," said Miss Dobbs. "That's the worst of 
 being a clean potato, you are always missing your share of 
 the cake." 
 
 Mr. Harper was completely out of his depth. He had no 
 reply to make to this very advanced remark. 
 
 Miss Dobbs watched his perplexed face with a narrow- 
 lidded wariness, behind which glittered the eyes of a goshawk. 
 But she was too wise to force the pace unduly. With a 
 suddenness that was almost startling, she said, "Well, ching- 
 a-ling. I'll look in again when you are not so busy, Mr. 
 Harper. One of these days perhaps you will give me advice 
 about my reminiscences." And with a smile and a wave 
 of her muff of excruciating friendliness, Miss Cora Dobbs 
 gave a trip and a waddle, and the high heels and the black 
 and white check uppers were on the pavement of the Char- 
 ing Cross Road. 
 
 For at least three minutes, however, after they had gone, 
 Dick Smith and the brigantine Excelsior were left in a state 
 of suspended animation. The author had to make a great 
 effort before he could proceed with Chapter Eighteen. A 
 glamour had passed from the earth ; at least from that part 
 of the earth contained by the four walls of No. 249, Charing 
 Cross Road. 
 
 237
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 VIII 
 
 MISS CORA DOBBS was as good as her word. She 
 looked in again ; indeed she formed quite a habit of 
 looking into the shop of Elihu Rudge, bookseller, 
 whenever she was passing. This seemed to work out on an 
 average at one morning a week. Her reminiscences could 
 hardly have induced this friendliness because, strange to say, 
 she never mentioned them again. 
 
 On a first consideration, it seemed more likely due to her 
 deep interest in the book Mr. Harper was writing, of which 
 her aunt had told her. Whenever Miss Dobbs looked in 
 she never failed to ask, "How is it going today?" and she 
 declared she would not be satisfied until a chapter had been 
 read to her. 
 
 Mr. Harper was rather embarrassed by the attentions 
 af Miss Dobbs. He was a very shy young man, and in re- 
 gard to his new and strange and sometimes extremely painful 
 labors he was unreasonably silent. But so determined was 
 the interest of Miss Dobbs that in the end Mr. Harper 
 yielded to its pressure. At last he let her see the manuscript. 
 But even that did not content her. She was set, it seemed, 
 on having some of the choicest passages read aloud by the au- 
 thor when there was no one in the shop. 
 
 In a way the determination of Miss Dobbs was rather a 
 thorn. Yet it would have been idle and ungracious for Mr. 
 Harper to pretend that he was not flattered by this remark- 
 able solicitude for the story of Dick Smith and the brigantine 
 Excelsior. He was very flattered indeed. For one thing, 
 Miss Dobbs was Miss Dobbs in a way that Miss Foldal had 
 never been Miss Foldal. She was a force in the way that 
 Ginger was; her elegance was positive, it meant something. 
 She had a subtle air of "being out for blood," just as Ginger 
 238
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 had when they had paid their first never-to-be-forgotten visit 
 to Blackhampton. Deep in his heart the Sailor was a little 
 afraid of Miss Cora Dobbs. Yet he did not know why he 
 should be. She was extraordinarily agreeable. No one could 
 have been pleasanter to talk to; she was by far the wittiest 
 and most amusing lady he had ever met; it was impossible 
 not to like her immensely; but already a subtle instinct told 
 him to beware. 
 
 As for Miss Dobbs, her state of mind would be difficult to 
 render. Just as Mr. Harper was very simple, Miss Dobbs 
 was extremely complex. In the first place, there seemed no 
 particular reason why she should have come into the shop 
 at all. It may have been curiosity. Perhaps her aunt had 
 aroused it by the statement that Mr. Rudge had "set up a 
 nice-looking boy as wrote books," and it may have been that 
 the bearing of the nice-looking boy gave warrant for a con- 
 tinuance of Miss Dobbs' friendly regard. 
 
 On the other hand, it may have been the nature of Mr. 
 Harper's calling which inspired these punctual attentions. 
 It certainly had possibilities. Among the friends of Miss 
 Dobbs was a certain Mr. Albert Hobson who was reputed to 
 earn several thousands a year by his pen. Again, it may have 
 been the statement of her aunt that the young man "had 
 follered the sea and had a nest-egg put by." Or again it may 
 have been the young man himself who appealed to her. His 
 clean simplicity of mind and of mansion may have had a 
 morbid attraction for a complexity that was pathological. 
 Of these hypotheses the last may seem least probable, but 
 the motives of a Miss Cora Dobbs defy analysis; and in a 
 world in which nothing is absolute she is perhaps entitled to 
 the benefit of any doubt that may arise concerning them. 
 
 In spite of Miss Dobbs, whose attentions for the present 
 were confined to a few minutes one morning a week, the 
 story of Dick Smith began to make excellent progress. All 
 239
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 the same it was uphill work. The Sailor was a very clumsy 
 craftsman using the queerest of tools, but oddly enough he 
 had a remarkable faculty of concentration. 
 
 At last came the day when the final chapter was written. 
 And a proud day it was. In spite of many defeats and mis- 
 givings, he was able at three o'clock of a summer morning 
 to write the magic words, "The End." Yet it was far from 
 being the end of his labors. He little knew that he had 
 merely come to Mount Pisgah, and that for many days he 
 must be content with no more than a glimpse of the Promised 
 Land. 
 
 In telling the story of his early years the Sailor had no 
 particular object in view. Certain mysterious forces were 
 craving expression. Such a task had not been undertaken at 
 the call of ambition. But now it was done ambition found a 
 part to play. 
 
 On the very morning the story was finished, by an odd 
 chance Miss Dobbs came into the shop. In answer to her 
 invariable, "Well, what of it?" she was gravely informed 
 that the end had been reached. 
 
 "My ! you've been going some, Mr. R. L. Stevenson. Run 
 along and fetch the last chapter and read it to me and 
 then I'll tell you honestly whether I think it's as good as Bert 
 Hobson." 
 
 Miss Dobbs had the habit of command. Therefore Chap- 
 ter the Last, telling of the hero's miraculous deliverance from 
 the Island of San Pedro, was at once produced. Moreover, 
 it was read to her with naif sincerity in a gentle voice. 
 
 "Hot stuff!" Miss Dobbs dexterously concealed a yawn 
 with a dingy white glove. "It's It." 
 
 The author blushed with pleasure, although he could 
 hardly believe the story was as good as all that. 
 
 "And what are you going to do with it now you've writ- 
 ten it?" 
 
 240
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 To her Intense surprise it had not occurred to him to do 
 anything with it. 
 
 "Oh, but that's potty. That's merely potty. Of course 
 you are going to bring it out as a book." 
 
 The author had not thought of doing so. 
 
 "Anyhow, it is just the thing for a magazine." 
 
 Even a magazine had not entered his mind. 
 
 "What are you going to do with it, then?" demanded 
 Miss Dobbs, with growing incredulity. 
 
 This was a question Mr. Harper was unable to answer. 
 
 "You are going to do nothing with it?" gasped Miss 
 Dobbs. 
 
 "No." 
 
 'But it's 'some' story, I assure you it is. If you send 
 it to the Rotunda or the Covent Garden it may mean big 
 money." 
 
 Quite absurdly the financial aspect had not presented itself. 
 
 "Well, you're potty," said Miss Dobbs, with despondency. 
 "Don't you know that Bert Hobson, who writes those stories 
 for the Rotunda, makes his thousands a year?" 
 
 Mr. Harper, who had never heard of Bert Hobson or of 
 the Rotunda, seemed greatly surprised. 
 
 "Why, you are as green as green," said Miss Dobbs re- 
 proachfully, "It's such a nugget of thrills, you ought to 
 see that it gets published. You ought really." 
 
 But in spite of her conviction it was some time before he 
 felt abk to take her advice. Such unpractical reluctance on 
 the part of genius gave her pain. It seemed to lower its value. 
 He must be a genius to have written a book, but it was a 
 great pity that he should confirm the world's estimate of 
 genius by behaving like one. 
 
 Why had he taken so much trouble if he was not going 
 to get a nice fat check out of it? 
 
 He had written it because he felt he must. 
 241
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 It's a very sloppy reason, was the unexpressed opinion of 
 Miss Dobbs. 
 
 After such a hopeless admission on the part of the young 
 man with the queer eyes, Miss Dobbs felt so hurt that she 
 did not appear in the shop for three weeks. And when at 
 last she came again, she learned that the story of Dick Srnitfi 
 and the brigantine Excelsior was still in its drawer and had 
 yet to be seen by anyone. 
 
 "You beat Banagher," said Miss Dobbs. And then she 
 suddenly exclaimed, "Look here, Mr. Harper, give me that 
 story and I'll send it myself to the Rotunda" 
 
 Very gently and politely, but quite firmly, Mr. Harper 
 declined to do so. But in order to appease Miss Dobbs, who 
 was inclined to make this refusal a personal matter, he sol- 
 emnly promised that he would send it to the Rotunda him- 
 self, or some other magazine. 
 
 Henry Harper took a sudden resolve that night to send the 
 story to the home of its only true begetter, Brown's Maga- 
 zine. Why he chose that periodical in preference to the Ro- 
 tunda was more than he could say. It may have been a 
 feeling of reverence for the dilapidated Volume CXLI with 
 part of the July number missing. Some high instinct may- 
 have been at work since the gods must have some kind of 
 machinery to help them in these matters. At least the ma- 
 terial fact was beyond dispute. He packed the story that 
 evening in neat brown paper, and before taking down the 
 shutters of the shop the next morning, went out and posted 
 it, although sure in his own mind that he was guilty of a 
 foolish proceeding. 
 
 Still, there was a lady in the case. But when in the course 
 of the following day Miss Dobbs looked in again, by some 
 odd perversity she was inclined to share this view to the full. 
 She had never heard of Brown's Magazine. The Rotunda 
 and the Covent Garden were her stand-bys. She never read 
 242
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 anything else. But she dared say that Brown's money would 
 be as good as other people's, although Brown s Magazine 
 certainly would not have the circulation of the Rotunda. 
 
 Several weeks passed. Miss Dobbs looked in now and 
 again to ask if Mr. Harper had "had any luck." To this 
 inquiry one invariable answer was given, and after a time 
 Miss Dobbs seemed to lose something of her faith. Her 
 interest in the story of Dick Smith and in Mr. Harper him- 
 self began to wane. She had said from the first that Brown s 
 was a mistake. It should have been the Rotunda or nothing. 
 Miss Dobbs was a firm believer in beginning at the top ; in 
 her opinion it was easier to come down than it was to go 
 up. 
 
 When the fourth week of silence on the part of Brown s 
 Magazine had been entered upon, she suggested that Mr. 
 Harper should stir them up a bit. With surprising incon- 
 sequence he asked for one more week of grace. For his own 
 part, he could not help thinking it was a good sign. Miss 
 Dobbs did not share his view. Brown s had either mislaid 
 the manuscript, they had not received it, or they had de- 
 stroyed it; and in a state verging upon sarcasm she withdrew 
 from the shop with the final and crushing remark, "that Mr. 
 Harper was a rum one, and she doubted very much whether 
 he would ever make good." 
 
 However, Miss Dobbs, in spite of her knowledge of the 
 world, had to admit, a week later, that Mr. Harper knew 
 more" about Browns Magazine than she did. For when 
 she looked in on the morning of Saturday to inquire for 
 news of the ill-fated Dick Smith she was met triumphantly 
 with a letter which had come by the last post the previous 
 evening. 
 
 With quite a thrill she took the letter out of its neatly 
 embossed envelope and made an attempt to read the fol- 
 lowing : 
 
 243
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 I2B, Pall Mall, 
 
 September 2. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 Your story has now been read twice, and the conclusion 
 very reluctantly come to by the writer is that it would be im- 
 possible to use it in Brown's Magazine in its present form. 
 It bears many marks of inexperience, but at the same time 
 it has such a strikingly original quality that the writer would 
 be very glad to have a talk with you about it. In the mean- 
 time the MS is being returned to you. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 EDWARD AMBROSE. 
 
 "I don't call that writing," said Miss Dobbs, who had 
 been utterly defeated by the hand of the editor of Brown's 
 Magazine. "It is just a fly walking across the paper without 
 having wiped its feet. Read it to me, Mr. Harper." 
 
 Mr. Harper, who had spent nearly an hour the previous 
 evening in making out the letter, and now knew it by heart, 
 enforced her respect by reading it aloud as if it had been 
 nothing out of the common. 
 
 "Marks of inexperience!" was her comment. "Like his 
 impudence. I wonder who he thinks he is. You take my 
 advice, Mr. Harper, and send it to the Covent Garden. See 
 what they've got to say about it." 
 
 However, before taking that course, Henry Harper felt it 
 would be the part of wisdom to get in touch with the real live 
 editor who had expressed a wish to see him. Besides, there 
 had been something in the letter signed "Edward Ambrose" 
 which had set a chord vibrating in his heart. 
 
 244
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 IX 
 
 IN order to pay a visit to I2B, Pall Mall, Henry Harper 
 had to ask for leave. This was readily granted by his 
 master, who was even more impressed by the letter 
 from the editor of Brown s Magazine than was its recipient. 
 
 As became one who had a practical acquaintance with 
 editors and publishers, Mr. Rudge knew that for more than a 
 century Brown s Magazine had been a Mecca of the man 
 ' of letters. Great names were enshrined in its history. These 
 began with Byron and Scott, and flowed through the Vic- 
 torian epoch to the most gifted and representative minds of 
 the present. Mr. Ambrose himself was a critic of some celeb- 
 rity; moreover, Brown's Magazine was still half a crown a 
 month as it always had been, so that even its subscribers had 
 a sense of exclusiveness. 
 
 Henry Harper was so shy that when the hour came for 
 him to set forth to I2B, Pall Mall, his one desire was to take 
 the advice of Miss Dobbs and not pay his visit at all. But 
 Mr. Rudge was adamant. Henry must go to Pall Mall if 
 only for the sake of the firm. Just as the young man was 
 about to set out, his master emphasized the immense impor- 
 tance of the matter by appearing on the scene, clothes brush 
 in hand, in order to give a final touch to his toilet. No dis- 
 credit must be done to 249, Charing Cross Road. An unprec- 
 edented honor had been conferred upon it. 
 
 The reception of Mr. Harper in Pall Mall was of a kind 
 to impress a sensitive young man of high aspiration and very 
 limited opportunity. To begin with, Pall Mall is Pall Mall, 
 and No. I2B in every chaste external was entirely worthy 
 of its local habitation. After a much bemedaled commis- 
 sionaire of incredibly distinguished aspect had ushered the 
 young man into the front office, he was received by a grave 
 245
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 and reverend signior in a frock coat who Mr. Harper in- 
 stinctively felt was the editor himself. Such, however, was 
 not the case. The grave and reverend one was a trusted 
 member of the staff, whose duty it was to usher contributors 
 into the Presence, and in the meantime, if delay arose, to 
 arrange for their well-being. 
 
 Before Mr. Harper could be received, he spent some ter- 
 rible minutes in a tiny waiting-room, in which he felt he was 
 being asphyxiated. During that time it was borne in upon 
 him that he would not be equal to the ordeal ahead. Every 
 minute he grew more nervous. He could never face it, he was 
 sure. Far better to have taken the advice of the wise Miss 
 Dobbs, and have been content with the Covent Garden. 
 
 Before the fateful moment came he was in a state of 
 despair. Why he should have been was impossible to say. 
 What was Pall Mall in comparison with the forecastle or the 
 futtock shrouds of the Margaret Carey? What were the 
 commissionaire and the frock-coated gentleman in comparison 
 with Mr. Thompson and the Old Man ? Yet he came within 
 an ace of flying out of that waiting-room into the street. 
 
 The cicerone reappeared, led the young man up a flight of 
 stairs, opened a door, and announced, "Mr. Harper." 
 
 Seated at a writing table in a bay of the large, airy, well- 
 appointed room, was a gravely genial man, whose face had 
 that subtle look of power which springs from the play of 
 mind. 
 
 He rose at once and offered a welcome of such unstudied 
 cordiality that Henry Harper forgot that he had ever been 
 afraid of him. The editor of Brown s Magazine placed a 
 chair for the young man and asked him to sit down. He 
 then returned to his writing table, leaned back in his own 
 chair, and half turned to face his visitor. 
 
 "Your story interested me enormously." The editor 
 studied very closely the young man opposite without appear- 
 246
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 ing to do so ; and then he said, in a slightly changed tone, as 
 if a theory previously formed had been confirmed, "I am sure 
 wu have had experience of the sea." 
 
 The Sailor knew already that he was going to like Mr. 
 Ambrose immensely. In a subtle way he was reminded of 
 Klondyke, and more remotely of Mr. Horrobin, but yet he 
 felt that Mr. Ambrose was not really like them at all. 
 
 As for Edward Ambrose, he had at once fixed in his mind 
 a picture of great simplicity, of eager intensity, of an earnest- 
 ness pathetic and nai'f. Strange to say, it was almost exactly 
 the one he had been able to envisage beforehand. If ever a 
 human document had ascended to the first floor of I2B, Pall 
 Mall, it was here before his eyes. 
 
 The Sailor began presently to forget his shyness in a 
 surprising way. Mr. Ambrose differed from Mr. Horrobin 
 inasmuch that he was ready, even anxious, to listen. He 
 seemed quite eager that the Sailor should speak about himself. 
 The story had interested him very much. He felt its power, 
 and saw great possibilities for a talent, immature as it was, 
 which could declare itself in a shape so definite. 
 
 After a while the Sailor talked with less reserve than per- 
 haps he ought to have done. But such a man was very hard 
 to resist impossible for certain natures. He had a faculty 
 of perception that was very rare, he was amazingly quick to 
 see and to appreciate ; and with this curious power of realizing 
 all that was worthy there was a knack of overlooking, of 
 perhaps even blinding himself, to things less pleasing. 
 
 The Sailor's speech, queer and semi-literate as it was, 
 exactly resembled his writing. Here was something rare and 
 strange. The shy earnestness of the voice, the neat serge 
 suit, well tended but of poor quality, the general air of clean 
 simplicity without and within ; above all, the haunted eyes 
 of this deep-sea mariner, which had seen so much more than 
 they would ever be able to tell, fixed towards a goal they 
 247
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 could never hope to attain, were much as Edward Ambrose 
 had pictured them. 
 
 "I want to use your story," said the editor; "but please 
 don't be offended by what I am going to say." 
 
 The look in the face of the Sailor showed it would be quite 
 impossible for Mr. Ambrose to offend him. 
 
 "There are little things, certain rules that have to be 
 learned before even Genius itself can be given a hearing. 
 And it is vital to master them. But you are so far on the 
 road, that in a short time, if you care to go on, I am convinced 
 you will have all the tricks of a craft which too often begins 
 and ends in trickery and once in a lustrum rises to po\ver. At 
 least that's my experience." And Mr. Ambrose laughed with 
 charming friendliness. 
 
 "Now," he went on, "I will let you into a secret that all 
 the world knows. We declined Treasure Island. Not in my 
 time, I am glad to say, but Brown's Magazine declined it. 
 The story is told against us; and if we can we want to wipe 
 the blot off our escutcheon. And I feel, Mr. Harper, that if 
 you will learn the rules of the game and not lose yourself, 
 one day you will help us to do so." 
 
 It took the editor some time to explain what he meant. 
 But he did so at considerable length and with \vonderful 
 lucidity. The personality of this young man appealed to 
 him. And he felt that the author of Dick Smith had had an 
 almost superhuman task laid upon him. Here was a competi- 
 tor in the Olympian games starting from a mark so far 
 behind his peers that by all the laws he was out of the race 
 before he started to run it. But was he ? Somehow Edward 
 Ambrose felt that if this dauntless spirit, already many times 
 defeated, but never completely overthrown, could find the 
 courage to go on, the world would have cause one day to con- 
 gratulate Brown's Magazine. 
 
 The editor took a cordial leave of his strange visitor, 
 248
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Keep on keeping on, and see what comes of it. Don't be 
 afraid to use the knife, but be careful not to cut yourself. 
 That's the particular form of the eternal paradox assumed by 
 the absolute for the overthrow of the writing man! It's a 
 riddle each must read in his own way. But instinct is the 
 master key. Trust it as you have done already, and it will 
 unlock every door. However, we will talk of that another 
 time. But you might bear in mind what a great writer said 
 to me here in this room only last week. 'When you feel any- 
 thing you may have written is really fine it is a golden rule to 
 leave it out.' Clear away a few of the trees, and then 
 we may begin to see the wood. But this doesn't apply 
 to the Island of San Pedro. Not a word of that can be 
 spared." 
 
 The Sailor walked on air as far as the National Gallery. 
 But as he turned the corner into Charing Cross Road he was 
 brought to earth by a violent collision with an elderly gentle- 
 man. He was not brought literally to earth because he suf- 
 fered less than his victim. 
 
 Before the elderly gentleman had ceased to blaspheme 
 the young man came within an ace of an even more emphatic 
 reminder of earth's realities : at the end of Cranbourn Street 
 an omnibus nearly ran over him. Still, it is the part of char- 
 ity to cover his sins, because up till then, Tuesday, September 
 the fifth had been the day of his life. 
 
 THIS mood did not last very long. He was now up 
 against the stern facts of authorship. The story of 
 Dick Smith would have to be written again and 
 written differently. In the reincarnation would be little of 
 the creative rapture of the primal birth. And so little faith 
 249
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 had the Sailor in his powers that he could not help feeling 
 that too much had been asked of them. 
 
 To add to his doubts, he was beset by conflicting advice. 
 Miss Dobbs was quite angry when she learned the result of 
 the interview with Mr. Ambrose, whichtshe'did the day after 
 it had taken place. 
 
 "Wants you to write it again, does he?" she said with a 
 glow of indignation. "I call that the limit ! Now, if you'll 
 be guided by me, Mr. Harper, which, of course, you ought to 
 have been from the first, you'll do nothing of the kind. Send 
 it to the Rotunda or the Covent Garden." 
 
 Miss Dobbs was so firm and Henry Harper was so op- 
 pressed by the magnitude of his task, that he came very near 
 taking her advice. 
 
 It was the intervention of the author of "A History of the 
 World" in forty volumes with an index that saved the situa- 
 tion. Mr. Rudge was horrified when he learned that Henry 
 Harper thought of trying his luck with the Rotunda. It was 
 nothing less than an act of lese-majeste. There could be so 
 little ground of comparison between that upstart and Brown's 
 that in the opinion of Mr. Rudge it was better to be damned 
 by the fountain of honor, which had published Byron and 
 Scott, than be accepted and even tricked out with illus- 
 trations there would be no illustrations in the "History of 
 the World" by a cheap and flashy parvenu which bore a 
 similar relation to literature to that a toadstool bore to 
 horticulture. 
 
 Miss Dobbs had force of character, but she was no match 
 for Mr. Rudge when it came to a question of Brown's Mag- 
 azine v. the Rotunda. He even went to the length of telling 
 her that she didn't know what she was talking about. The 
 grave spectacled eyes of the historian flashed to such purpose 
 that Miss Dobbs was fain to admit "that she never would 
 have thought the old fool had it in him." But great issues 
 250
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 were at stake. All that he stood for was in the scale. Such 
 an affront should only be offered to Culture over the dead 
 body of the author of the "History of the World." 
 
 Finally, Henry Harper sat down to rewrite the story of 
 Dick Smith and the brigantine Excelsior. As a fruit of 
 victory, Mr. Rudge ordained that the young man should 
 return to the study of grammar. It was more than ever nec- 
 essary now. He was sure that had he been as well up in 
 grammar as he ought to have been, the question of rewriting 
 the story of Dick Smith could never have arisen. 
 
 These were trying days. But the Sailor stuck gallantly 
 to his guns. In spite of the pessimism of Miss Dobbs, who 
 still looked in now and again, he grappled with an extremely 
 difficult task. Moreover, he did so very thoroughly. Mr. 
 Ambrose had given him only general rules to go by ; yet these, 
 few and succinct as they were, seemed to cut into the woof 
 and fabric of his mind. 
 
 As the days passed, and the end of Henry Harper's labor 
 seemed farther off than ever, Miss Dobbs grew more gloomy, 
 but her regard for his welfare was still considerable. He 
 might have been grateful had it become less, but he was 
 far too chivalrous to admit such a thought. Besides, it 
 was not a little surprising that a lady of the standing of 
 Miss Dobbs should take an interest in such a person as 
 himself. 
 
 One day, she invited him to tea at her flat. He must come 
 tomorrow afternoon, to meet her great friend, Zoe Bonser, 
 who was a Maison Perry girl, and very nice and clever. Had 
 there been a way of evading this point-blank invitation, he 
 would certainly have sought it. Unfortunately there was 
 not. Before issuing her invitation Miss Dobbs had already 
 taken the precaution of asking casually whether "he was 
 doing anything Sunday afternoon?" 
 
 Mr. Harper grew quite alarmed as soon as he realized 
 17 2 Si
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 what he had done. The mere thought of the society of 
 promiscuous ladies, however nice and clever, was enough to 
 frighten him. Miss Dobbs herself, who was niceness and 
 cleverness personified, had never really broken through the 
 ice. They were old friends now, but even she, with all the 
 arts of which she was mistress, had never been able to pene- 
 trate the reserve of this odd young man. If he had not been 
 incapable of deliberately wounding the feelings of a lady who 
 had shown him such kindness, he would have boldly refused 
 to meet the nice and clever Miss Bonser, which with all his 
 soul he longed to do. 
 
 Therefore, on Sunday afternoon, he sadly abandoned a 
 chapter of Dick Smith, which was now in a tangle so hope- 
 less that it seemed it would never come right After infinite 
 pains had made him as presentable as a very limited ward- 
 robe allowed, he went to No. 106, King John's Mansions, the 
 whereabouts of which had already been explained to him 
 very carefully. 
 
 Miss Dobbs' flat was right at the top of a very large, very 
 gloomy, and very draughty building. Its endless flights of 
 stone stairs there was no lift, although it was clearly a case 
 for one seemed not to have been swept for a month at least. 
 But this was in keeping with a general air of cheapness and 
 discomfort. By the time Mr. Harper had climbed as far as 
 No. 106, and had knocked timidly with a decrepit knocker 
 upon an uninviting door, he was in a state of panic and 
 dejection. 
 
 Miss Dobbs opened the door herself. As she stood on an 
 ungarnished threshold, cigarette in hand, flashing rows of 
 fine teeth in welcome, the young man's first thought was how 
 different she looked without her hat. His second thought 
 was that its absence hardly improved her. She looked older, 
 flatter, less mysterious. Even the fluffy and peroxidized 
 abundance, which came low on the forehead in a quite 
 252
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 remarkable bandeau, somehow gave a maturity to her appear- 
 ance that he had not in the least expected. 
 
 Miss Dobbs had all the arts of gracious hospitality. She 
 took his overcoat and hat away from him, and then hustled 
 him genially into what she called her "boo-door," into the 
 alert but extremely agreeable presence of the nice and clever 
 Miss Bonser. 
 
 Miss Bonser was not exactly what you would call beau- 
 tiful, but she had Chick to adopt the picturesque language 
 of her oldest and dearest friend in rendering her afterwards 
 to Mr. Henry Harper. She had the appearance of a thor- 
 oughly good sort, except that her eyes were so terribly wary, 
 although hardly so wary perhaps as those of her hostess, 
 because that would have been impossible. Still, there was 
 Chick and refinement, and above all, great cordiality in Miss 
 Bonser. Cordiality, indeed, was the prevailing note of No. 
 1 06, King John's Mansions. Miss Dobbs addressed Miss 
 Bonser as "dear," Miss Bonser addressed Miss Dobbs as 
 "dear," and then Miss Dobbs covered Mr. Harper with con- 
 fusion by suddenly and unexpectedly calling him "Harry." 
 
 "Take a pew, Harry," said Miss Dobbs. 
 
 Mr. Harper knew that he alone was intended, because 
 no other gentleman was there. Nervously he sat down in 
 a creaking and rickety cane chair. The "Harry" had flat- 
 tered him a goodish bit, since Miss Dobbs was quite as much 
 a lady in her home as she was out of it; also she had for a 
 friend another lady, a very nice and clever one, with a refined 
 voice, smart clothes, and a great amount of jewelry. She 
 had also the air and the manners of Society, of which he had 
 learned in the works of the famous novelist, W. M. Thack- 
 eray. The way in which Miss Bonser produced a private 
 case and offered it to him after choosing a cigarette for her- 
 self, somehow reminded him of "Vanity Fair." 
 
 "Harry don't smoke, do you, Harry?" said the hostess, 
 253
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 covering Mr. Harper's extreme confusion with rare tact and 
 spontaneity. 
 
 Miss Dobbs then made tea, and by the time Mr. Harper 
 had had two large and cracked cups of a weak brew and had 
 eaten one piece of buttered cake, being too shy to eat any- 
 thing else in spite of great pressure, he was able to collect 
 himself a little. 
 
 "Cora tells me you are writing a book, Harry," said Miss 
 Bonser conversationally. 
 
 Mr. Harper admitted this, although again startled by the 
 Harry. 
 
 "You don't mind, do you," said Miss Bonser, in answer to 
 his face. " 'Mister' is so formal. I'm all for being friendly 
 and pleasant myself. What was I saying? Oh, about the 
 book you are writing. My best boy, Bert Hobson, the 
 novelist, makes simply pots of money. He's got a serial 
 running now in the Covent Garden. You've read it, I 
 daresay." 
 
 It appeared that Mr. Harper had not read the story. 
 
 "Well, you ought reelly." Mr. Harper noticed that Miss 
 Bonser pronounced the polite word "reelly" exactly as Miss 
 Foldal did, although a much more fashionable lady in other 
 respects than the good fairy of Blackhampton. "Start at 
 once. Do it now. It's Albert's top notch." To Miss 
 Dobbs: "Don't you think so, dear?" 
 
 Miss Dobbs was quite of Miss Bonser's opinion. 
 
 "What's the name of your book?" asked Miss Bonser. 
 
 " 'The Adventures of Dick Smith,' " said Mr. Harper 
 nervously. 
 
 "It's a very good title, don't you think so, dear?" 
 
 Miss Dobbs thought so too. 
 
 "I suppose you'll dedicate it to Cora," said Miss Bonser, 
 "as she has taken such an interest in it." 
 
 Mr. Harper had to admit rather shamefacedly that it had 
 254
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 not occurred to him to do that. Miss Bonser was surprised ; 
 but Miss Dobbs said she couldn't think of it. She didn't look 
 for a reward. Miss Bonser said she was sure of that, yet 
 Mr. Harper felt very uncomfortable because it was borne 
 in upon him that he had been guilty of a sin of omission. An 
 awkward silence followed, at least so it appeared to Mr. Har- 
 per, but it was very tactfully terminated by Miss Bonser, 
 who suddenly asked Miss Dobbs about Harold. 
 
 Harold, it seemed, was very keen on Miss Dobbs ; in fact, 
 he was her best boy. He was an architect who lived at 
 Wimbledon, but had just taken rooms in town. He was a 
 Cambridge man, had a commission in the Territorials, and 
 was a regular sport. However, this seemed to convey so 
 little to Mr. Harper that the conversation soon appeared to 
 languish in regard to Harold. 
 
 After this, the young man sat very anxiously in the cane 
 chair, wanting sorely to get out of it, yet with not enough 
 knowledge of society to be able to do so. "The Adventures 
 of Dick Smith" were calling him loudly, yet he had too lit- 
 tle courage and too much politeness to venture upon the 
 headlong flight which above all things he now desired. 
 Presently, however, his air of mute misery appealed to his. 
 hostess, who suddenly said with great good nature. "Now, 
 don't you be staying, Harry, a moment longer than you think 
 you ought. I know you want to get back to your writing." 
 And Miss Dobbs rose and shook hands with him gravely. 
 Miss Bonser then sat up in her wicker chair and offered 
 her hand at a very fashionable angle, but said good-by with 
 real friendliness, and then Mr. Harper made a very awkward 
 exit without either self-possession or dignity. 
 
 "Chase me," said Miss Bonser, as soon as the smiling Miss 
 Dobbs had returned from letting the young man out of the 
 front door. 
 
 255
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Priceless, isn't he?" Miss Dobbs flung herself with a 
 suppressed giggle into a wicker chair. 
 
 "Well, well," reflected Miss Bonser. "One of these days 
 he may be useful to bring you in out of the rain." 
 
 "If he begins to make good," said Miss Dobbs sagely. 
 "You never know your luck." 
 
 "Cruelty to children, isn't it?" 
 
 Miss Dobbs smiled thoughtfully. "Don't you think his 
 eyes are rather nice?" she said. 
 
 "He's got a lot in his face," said Miss Bonser. "That's 
 a face that's seen things. And I'm not so sure, dear, that he 
 is such a juggins as we fancy." 
 
 "We'll hope not at any rate," said Miss Dobbs coolly. 
 
 "Still, I like a man with a punch in him myself." 
 
 "Perhaps I'll be able to improve him a bit. He hardly 
 knows he's born at present." 
 
 "That's true, dear," said Miss Bonser, with a rather indis- 
 creet gurgle. 
 
 "It's nothing to laugh at, Zoe." To the surprise of her 
 friend, Miss Dobbs seemed a little hurt. 
 
 "Well, well." Miss Bonser flung away the end of her 
 cigarette. 
 
 XI 
 
 THE Adventures of Dick Smith" continued to make 
 progress. Still, it was uphill work. But Henry 
 Harper had a tenacity truly remarkable "the 
 angelic patience of genius," in the phrase of Balzac. Not 
 that it ever occurred to the Sailor himself that he was 
 a genius, or for that matter to Mr. Rudge, who did not 
 believe in genius; yet, a little ironically, Miss Dobbs informed 
 her friend Miss Bonser more than once that she would not be 
 surprised if he turned out a bit of one. 
 256
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Mr. Harper's first visit to King John's Mansions was not 
 his last. Miss Dobbs saw to that. He was so odd that she 
 was tempted to ask herself whether this particular game was 
 worth the candle; also her friends were continually asking 
 each other a similar question on her behalf. Nevertheless, 
 "Harry" unconsciously formed quite a habit of going to tea 
 round the corner in the Avenue on Sunday afternoons. 
 
 He was chaffed rather unmercifully at times by several 
 of the ladies he found there, in particular by a certain Miss 
 Gertie Press, by nature so witty and sarcastic that the young 
 man was genuinely afraid of her. Still, it was a very valu- 
 able experience to have the entree to this dashing circle, and 
 often when he did not wish to go he forced himself to do so 
 by sheer power of will, he had such a strong, ever-growing 
 desire to improve himself and to increase his knowledge of 
 the world. 
 
 Miss Gertie Press was a knut. It was about the time that 
 portent was coming into vogue. She was one of the rather 
 primitive kind to be found in the second row of the Frivolity 
 chorus of which she was an ornament. She was extremely 
 good-natured, as all these ladies seemed to be, at least in 
 Mr. Harper's presence; but could he have heard their com- 
 ments when he had returned to his "masterpiece," about 
 which they were always chaffing him, he might have held 
 other views. "Greased Lightning" was Miss Press's name 
 for him, he was so extraordinarily quick in the uptake! 
 "He's got the brains of my boot," said she. "Your money 
 is on the wrong horse, Cora." 
 
 These ladies were really sorry for poor Cora. She must 
 be potty to trouble herself with a thing like that. But the 
 time came when Cora's friends began to think differently. 
 
 At the end of April, after nearly eight months' hard toil, 
 in the course of which the "Adventures" had been cut down 
 one half, and the half that remained had been remodeled and 
 257
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 rewritten, and then written all over again, the Sailor packed 
 up the manuscript, without any particular emotion except 
 a vague one of simple despair, and sent it to the editor of 
 Brown's Magazine, from whom he had not heard a word 
 since September 5. 
 
 Mr. Rudge, after reading the revised version in a very 
 conscientious manner, thought the grammar decidedly weak, 
 and felt the thing must always suffer from being a work 
 of the imagination. In his eyes nothing could soften that 
 cardinal defect; but he was a liberal-minded man, and if 
 Brown s Magazine was really interested in that sort of thing 
 well, it was no business of his to decry it. There was no 
 accounting for taste after all, and Browns was certainly the 
 best magazine of its kind in existence. 
 
 A week passed, and then one evening the replica of a 
 certain envelope which would ever remain upon the tablets 
 of his memory was dropped through the slit in the shop door. 
 It was addressed to "Henry Harper, Esquire," and ran as 
 follows : 
 
 DEAR MR. HARPER, 
 
 Come and see me as soon as 3^011 can and let us have an- 
 other little talk about "The adventures of Dick Smith." 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 EDWARD AMBROSE. 
 
 Henry Harper did not understand the significance of those 
 few and simple words. Mr. Rudge had a fair juster appre- 
 ciation of the three barely legible lines signed "Edward 
 Ambrose." But the next morning, after further ministrations 
 of his master's clothes brush, the young man went courage- 
 ously forth to I2B, Pall Mall. 
 
 The bemedaled commissionaire and the bald-headed gen- 
 tleman had no terrors for him now. Had he not walked and 
 talked with Zeus himself? These Olympian sconce bearers 
 258
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 could not eat him, and there is always comfort in that reflec- 
 tion for an imaginative mind. Even a ten minutes' wait in 
 the room below did not matter. 
 
 Mr. Ambrose greeted him with a grip of the hand which 
 seemed to utter a volume. 
 
 "It's a very fine thing," said the editor, without a word 
 of preface, as if there could be only one thought for either 
 just then. "At least that's my opinion." He laughed a little 
 at his own vehemence. "Some people will not agree with me. 
 They'll say it's too crude, they'll say the colors are laid on 
 too thick. But that to me is its wonderful merit; it con- 
 vinces in spite of itself, which is almost the surest test of 
 genius, although that's a big word. But you've a great fac- 
 ulty. I'm so glad you've been able to make such a fine thing." 
 His eyes shone; the charming voice vibrated with simple 
 enthusiasm. *"How one envies a man who can make a thing 
 like that!" 
 
 "You needn't, sir," said the Sailor, hardly knowing that 
 he had spoken. 
 
 Edward Ambrose fell to earth like an exploded firework. 
 In spite of an eagerness of temperament which amused his 
 friends, he was not a vaporer. He, too, had been in deep 
 places, although the strange kingdoms he had seen were not 
 exactly those of this young man, this curious, awkward, silent, 
 unforgettable figure. 
 
 "No, I expect not," said Mr. Ambrose in a changed tone, 
 after a short pause. And then he added abruptly, "Now, 
 suppose we sit down and talk business." 
 
 They sat down, but the Sailor had no better idea of talking 
 business than the table in front of him. 
 
 "I want very much to run it as a serial in the magazine," 
 said the editor. 
 
 "I'll be very proud, sir." 
 
 "Well, now, what do you think we ought to pay for it? 
 259
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Just for the serial rights, you know. Of course I ought to 
 explain that you are a new and untried author, and so on. 
 But to my mind that's cheating. Either a thing is or it isn't. 
 I dare say I'm wrong ... in a world in which nothing is 
 certain . . . however . . . what do you think we ought to 
 pay for the serial rights? 
 
 "I'll leave it to you, sir." 
 
 "Well, the magazine can afford to pay three hundred 
 pounds. And we will talk about the book rights later." 
 
 Such a sum was beyond the Sailor's wildest dreams. Truth 
 to tell he had dreamed very little upon that aspect of the 
 matter. He knew the value of money, therefore it had never 
 occurred to him that it would be within the power of a pen 
 and a bottle of ink to bring it to him in such fabulous quan- 
 tities. He seemed just now to be living in a dream. 
 
 "Three hundred pounds, then," said Mr. Ambrose. "And 
 I wish the magazine could have paid more without injustice 
 to itself. But its audience is small, though select as we 
 hope at any rate. 
 
 The Sailor's manner showed very clearly that no apology 
 was called for. Such a sum was princely. Gratitude was 
 the emotion uppermost, and he did his best to express it in 
 , his queer, disjointed way. 
 
 "I'll always remember your kindness, sir," he said huskily. 
 "I'd never have been able to make anything of it at all if it 
 hadn't been for you." 
 
 "Oh, yes, you would. Not so soon, perhaps, but it's all 
 there. Anyhow, I'm very glad if I've been a bit of use at the 
 first fence." 
 
 The cordial directness of Edward Ambrose made a strong 
 appeal to the Sailor. He had knocked about the world 
 enough to begin to know something of men. And of one 
 thing he was already convinced. The editor was of the 
 true Klondyke breed. He said what he meant, and he meant 
 260
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 what he said. And when this fortunate interview was at 
 an end and the young man returned to the Charing Cross 
 Road, it was not so much the fabulous sum which had come 
 to him that made him happy, as the sure knowledge that he 
 had found a friend. He had found a friend of the kind for 
 which his soul had long craved. 
 
 XII 
 
 NOW that Greased Lightning is beginning to make 
 good," said Miss Gertie Press, "I suppose you'll 
 marry him, my Cora?" 
 
 "Shouldn't wonder. Have a banana." 
 
 This was persiflage on the part of Miss Dobbs. She 
 meant have a cigarette. 
 
 Miss Press lit the cheap but scented Egyptian that 
 was offered her, and lay back in the wicker chair with an 
 air of languor which somehow did not match up with the 
 gaminlike acuteness of her comically ill-natured counte- 
 nance. 
 
 "That's where long views come in," philosophized Miss 
 Press. "Wish I could take 'em. But I can't. I haven't 
 the nous. We all thought you was potty to take up with 
 him. But you won't half give us the bird now he looks like 
 turning out a good investment." 
 
 Miss Dobbs smiled at the frankness of her friend. Miss 
 Press was noted throughout the length and the breadth of 
 the Avenue for her habit of thinking aloud. 
 
 Miss Zoe Bonser, who was eating a tea cake, also smiled. 
 ^t was Sunday afternoon, and these three ladies were await- 
 ing the arrival of Mr. Henry Harper in a rather speculative 
 frame of mind. The previous Sunday Mr. Harper had not 
 appeared. 
 
 261
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 It was no longer possible to laugh at the mere name of 
 Greased Lightning and to pull Cora's leg and chaff her 
 unmercifully. It seemed that Miss Bonser, having men- 
 tioned casually to Mr. Albert Hobson that she had a friend 
 who had a friend who knew a young fellow whose first 
 serial was just beginning in Brown's, the admired Albert 
 had inquired immediately: 
 
 "What's the name of your young fellow?" 
 
 "He's not my young fellow," said Zoe the cautious. "But 
 his name's Lord, I've forgotten it!" This was untrue. 
 "But we all think he's potty." 
 
 "His name is not Henry Harper, by any chance?" 
 
 Miss Bonser nodded discreetly. She was a little surprised 
 at the set of the wind. 
 
 "But, of course, he's barmy." 
 
 "Whatever he is, he's no slouch," said the judicial Mr. 
 Hobson. He himself was no slouch either, in spite of the 
 company which in houis of ease he affected. "He'll go far. 
 He's another Stevenson and with luck one of these days he 
 might be something bigger." 
 
 "Don't care if he's a John Roberts or a Dawson," said 
 Zoe; "he's not fit to be out without his nurse." If the latter 
 part of Mr. Hobson's statement had meant little to that 
 'astute mind, the first part meant a good deal. 
 
 Miss Bonser bore the news to King John's Mansions on 
 th<r following Sunday afternoon. It made quite a sensation. 
 Bert Hobson was the nearest thing to "the goods" which had 
 yet impinged on that refined circle. He was something 
 more than the average harmless fool about town; in the 
 opinion of Miss Dobbs and Miss Press, he knew his way 
 about; and if Albert had really said that Harry was the 
 coming man, he could not have such a great distance to 
 vravel. 
 
 "I hope he is not going to give us a miss in baulk now 
 262
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 he's got there. That'll be swank if he does, won't it, 
 Bonser?" Miss Press winked at Miss Bonser in a serio- 
 comic manner. 
 
 "It will, Press," said that lady. 
 
 "He'll come. You'll see," said Miss Dobbs, with rea- 
 soned optimism. "He's here now." 
 
 In fact, at that moment a mild assault was being deliv- 
 ered by the decrepit knocker on a faintly responsive front 
 door. 
 
 "What was the check that Brown's gave him?" Miss 
 Press asked Miss Bonser, as Miss Dobbs went forth to 
 receive her guest. 
 
 "Three hundred so she says." 
 
 "Do you believe it?" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "But he's barmy." 
 
 "All these writing men are." 
 
 "Except Bert." 
 
 "Oh, he's barmy in a way, else he wouldn't have taken up 
 with me." 
 
 "Yes, that's true, dear. But did he say that about It?" 
 
 "Ye-es." 
 
 "Well, it's time she had a bit of luck ... if she's really 
 going to have it. She wants it badly." 
 
 "Yes, by God." 
 
 At this moment Mr. Henry Harper came into the room. 
 He~entered very nervously with his usual blush of embar- 
 rassment. The truth was, although he had yet to realize it 
 clearly, the undercurrent of sarcasm, never absent from this 
 refined atmosphere, always hurt him. Mr. Henry Harper 
 w r as a very sensitive plant, and these fashionable and witty 
 ladies did not appear to know that. 
 
 "He's a swanker," was the greeting of Miss Press, as she 
 offered her hand and then withdrew it playfully before Mr. 
 263
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Harper could take it. "And I never shake hands with a 
 swanker, do I, Bonser?" 
 
 "But he's so clever," said Miss Bonser, politely offering 
 hers. "He's Bert Hobson at his best." 
 
 Mr. Harper was so overcome by this reception that he had 
 the misfortune to knock over the teapot, which had been 
 placed on a small and ill-balanced Japanese table. 
 
 "Damn you!" The voice of the hostess came upon the 
 culprit like the stroke of a whip. For a moment Miss 
 Dobbs was off her guard. She was furious at the ruin of her 
 carpet and her hospitality, although the latter was really the 
 more important as the carpet was ruined already. "How- 
 ever, it doesn't matter." She hastened to cover the "Damn 
 you" with a heroic smile. "Take a pew, Harry, and make 
 yourself comfy. I can easily get some more ; it's the slavey's 
 Sunday out." The hostess, teapot in hand, withdrew from 
 the room with a winning air of reconstituted amenity. 
 
 "If you had been a little gentleman," said Miss Press, as 
 the hostess left the room, "you would have shot out of your 
 chair, opened the door for her, carried the teapot to the 
 kitchen, and held the caddy while she put in more tea. And 
 then you'd have riddled about with the kettle while she held 
 the teapot, and poured boiling water over her hand. After 
 that you'd have gone down on your knees, and then you'd 
 have kissed it better. At least, that's how you'd have 
 behaved if you had been a mother's boy in the Guards. 
 Wouldn't he, Bonser?'' 
 
 "Shut up, Press," said Miss Bonser. "It's a shame to 
 rag as you do." 
 
 "But he's a swanker," said Miss Press. "And I don't 
 like swankers." 
 
 Mr. Harper was in a state of extreme misery and feeling 
 very pink about the ears, when the smiling Miss Dobbs 
 reappeared with a fresh pot of tea. The way in which she 
 264
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 contrived to efface the tragic incident was admirable. She 
 poured out gracefully a cup of tea for Mr. Harper, a ter- 
 ribly weak cup of tea it was, and pressed half a buttered 
 scone upon him and smiled at him all the time, perhaps a 
 little anxiously, with her wonderful teeth. But in spite of 
 these winning attentions, it was not certain that the young 
 man was going to enjoy himself. That honest and forth- 
 right "Damn you" had brought with it somehow the taste 
 of Auntie's whip, and he could feel it still. Then, too, 
 these clever and witty ladies had a way of making him feel 
 ridiculous. Also, they spoke a language he didn't under- 
 stand. Moreover, he knew that Miss Press meant it when. 
 she said he wasn't a gentleman. To tell the truth, that was 
 a fact of which he was growing daily more conscious, and 
 the jesting remark of Miss Press hurt almost as much as 
 the "Damn you." 
 
 "If I was clever, and had a three-hundred-pound serial 
 running in Brown's Magazine" said Miss Press, "I'd be so 
 set up with myself that I wouldn't give a word to a dog 
 when I came out to a bun-worry. Would you, Bonser?" 
 
 "Shut up, Press," said the benign Miss Bonser. "Little 
 girls should be seen but not heard at least, that's what my 
 dear old governess taught me in the long ago." 
 
 "Yes, I knew you was brought up a clergyman's daugh- 
 ter," said Miss Press, returning stoutly to the charge. "And 
 so was Pressy and so was Dobby, and so was all of us." 
 
 "Play cricket, Pressy," said the hostess, rather plaintively. 
 
 For all that he knew, Mr. Harper might have been listen- 
 ing to a dead language. This may have relieved his inind 
 a little. All the same, it made it very difficult to take a hand 
 in the conversation, which these ladies clearly felt to be the 
 duty of a gentleman, whether he was in the Guards or not. 
 
 Suddenly Miss Press caused a portion of Mr. Harper's 
 buttered scone "to go the wrong way" by placing one of his 
 265
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 hands in that of his hostess, who had taken a seat rather 
 near him. 
 
 "Allow me," said Miss Press, rising gallantly from her 
 chair, and dealing Mr. Harper a succession of hearty buffets 
 in the middle of the back. "You really are the limit, Enery. 
 You might never have been in love before." 
 
 "Chuck it, Pressy," said Miss Dobbs. "Let my Harry 
 alone. My Harry's very clever, and his Cora's very proud of 
 him. Aren't I, Harry?" Miss Dobbs flashed upon the 
 unhappy young man a glance of very high candle power. 
 -She also sighed seraphically. 
 
 When Mr. Harper had swallowed his tea, of which one 
 r cup sufficed, and after abandoning any further attempt to 
 deal with his buttered scone, the hostess gathered the tea 
 things with the aid of her friends. She then took them to 
 the back premises, declining further help. In spite of the 
 protests of her guests, Miss Dobbs insisted on this self-deny- 
 ing course. She left Mr. Henry Harper in their care, and 
 hoped they would do their best to amuse him during her 
 absence. 
 
 XIII 
 
 HARRY," said Miss Press, with a dramatic change 
 of tone as soon as the hostess had retired with the 
 tea things, "Zoe and I have to talk to you very 
 serious. Haven't we, Zoe?" 
 
 Miss Bonser nodded impressively. 
 "You are not playing fair with Cora, Harry." 
 During the slight pause which followed this statement, a 
 look of fawnlike bewilderment flitted across the eyes of the 
 Sailor. 
 
 "You are breaking her heart," said Miss Press, with tragic 
 simplicity. 
 
 266
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Yes, dear," came the thrilling whisper of Miss Bonser. 
 "That's true." 
 
 "We are telling you this, Harry," said Miss Press, "be- 
 cause we think it is something you ought to know. You 
 think so, don't you, dear?" 
 
 "I do, dear," said Miss Bonser. 
 
 j "Cora is one of the best that ever stepped," said Miss 
 Press. "She has a heart of gold, she is a girl in a thousand. 
 It would be a black shame to spoil her life. You think that, 
 don't you, dear?" 
 
 "Yes, dear," said Miss Bonser emotionally. 
 
 Mr. Harper was completely out of his depth. He didn't 
 know in the least what they were talking about. 
 
 "Forgive us, Harry, for taking it upon ourselves in this 
 way," said Miss Bonser, in a kind, quiet voice. "We are 
 all for a bit of fun, but we can't stand by and see a good girl 
 suffering in silence, can we, Gertie?" 
 
 "No, dear," said Gertie, with pathos. 
 
 Both ladies eyed him cautiously. He was so innocent, he 
 was such a simple child that they could almost have found it 
 in their hearts to pity him. 
 
 "We feel bound to mention it, Harry," said Miss Press. 
 "Poor Cora can't take her oats or anything. She has to have 
 a sleeping draught now." 
 
 "And she's getting that thin, poor thing," chimed the 
 plaintive Miss Bonser. 
 
 The Sailor's perplexity grew. 
 
 "If you ask me," said Miss Press, suddenly taking a 
 higher note, "it's up to you, Harry, to play the gentleman." 
 Watching the color change in his face, she knew she was on 
 the target now. "A gentleman don't play fast and loose, if 
 you ask me." 
 
 "At least, not the sort we are used to," whispered Miss 
 Bonser, in a superb pianissimo. 
 18 267
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "It's Lord Caradoc and Pussy Pearson over again," said 
 Miss Press. "But Caradoc being the goods married Pussy 
 without making any bones about it. Harry, it's up to you to 
 follow the example of a real gentleman. Forgive us for 
 speaking plain." 
 
 Henry Harper glanced nervously from one lady to the 
 other. A light was just beginning to dawn upon him. 
 
 "Cora's a straight girl," said Miss Bonser, taking up the 
 parable. "She's one of the plucky ones, is Cora. It's a hard 
 world for lonely girls like her, isn't it, Gert?" 
 
 "It is, dear," said Gert. "And one like Cora, whose 
 position, as you might say, is uncertain, can't be too careful. 
 You see, Harry, you have been coming to her flat for the best 
 part of a year. You've been with her to the theater and the 
 Coliseum; two Sundays ago she was seen with you on the 
 river, and well, she's been getting herself talked about, and 
 Jiat's all there is to it." 
 
 "Cora's a girl in a thousand," chimed Zoe the tactful. 
 "She worships the ground you walk on, Harry." 
 
 A painfully startled look came suddenly into the eyes of 
 the young man. Both ladies felt the look rather than saw it, 
 and gave another sharp turn to the screw. 
 
 "Of course, you haven't known it, Harry," said Miss 
 Press. "She wouldn't let you know it. But that's Cora." 
 
 "She would rather have died," said Zoe. "You will not 
 breathe a word, of course, Harry. She would never forgive 
 us if she knew we had let on." 
 
 "That's her pride," said Miss Press. 
 
 "And the way that poor thing cried her eyes out when you 
 didn't turn up at tea time last Sunday as usual, the first time 
 
 for nearly a year, well " Language suddenly failed 
 
 Miss Bonser. "A pretty job we had with her, hadn't we, 
 Gert?" 
 
 So cunningly had the screw been applied, that Mr. Harper 
 268
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 felt dazed. Suddenly Miss Bonser raised a finger of 
 warning. 
 
 "Shush!" It was half a whisper, half a hiss. "Not a 
 word. Here's Cora." 
 
 Miss Dobbs came in so abruptly that she nearly caught 
 the injunction. And hardly had she entered, when Miss 
 Press and Miss Bonser rose together and declared that they 
 must really be going. 
 
 The hostess made a polite and conventional objection, but 
 both ladies kissed her effusively and hustled her out into the 
 passage. 
 
 "Dobby," Miss Press whispered excitedly, as soon as 
 they had reached that dark and smelly draught distributor, 
 "we've fairly put the half Nelson on him. Now go in and 
 fix him up." 
 
 Miss Bonser and Miss Press tripped down the many 
 unswept stone stairs of King John's Mansions, and Miss 
 Dobbs closed the front door of No. 106. She then returned 
 to Mr. Harper in the "boo-door." 
 
 "Well, Harry," she said, "why didn't you come last 
 Sunday?" 
 
 Had the Sailor been true to his strongest instinct he 
 would have fled. But he stayed where he was for several 
 reasons, and of these the most cogent was quite a simple 
 one. There was a will stronger than his own in the room 
 just then. 
 
 Miss Bonser and Miss Press, as became a long experience 
 of the chase, had done their work with efficiency. The Sailor 
 had not guessed that this friendly and amusing and very 
 agreeable lady in spite of the "Damn you" was so very 
 much in love with him. It was a wholly unexpected issue, 
 for which the young man was inclined to blame himself 
 bitterly. 
 
 "Well, Harry," said Miss Dobbs, breaking suddenly upon 
 269
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 a whirl of rather terrifying thoughts, "why didn't you come 
 last Sunday?" 
 
 He was in a state of mental chaos, therefore to attempt 
 to answer the question was useless. 
 
 "Why didn't oo, Harry?" Miss Dobbs suddenly felt 
 that it was a case for force majeure. Very unexpectedly she 
 flung her arms round his neck. Risking the rickety cane 
 chair she sat heavily upon his knee, yet not so heavily as she 
 might have done, and with a she-leopard's tenderness drew 
 his head to her ample bosom. 
 
 A thrill of repugnance passed through Henry Harper, yet 
 he was so fully engaged with a very pressing problem as 
 hardly to know that it had. 
 
 "Kiss your Cora, Harry." 
 
 But his Cora kissed Harry instead. And as she did so, 
 the unfailing instinct given to woman told her that that kiss 
 was a mistake. 
 
 In the next instant, the fat arms had disengaged them- 
 selves from the young man's neck, and Miss Dobbs had 
 slipped from his knee and was standing looking at him. 
 
 Her gesture was striking and picturesque; also she had 
 the air of a tragedy queen. 
 
 "Harry," she said, with a catch in her voice, "you are 
 breaking my heart." 
 
 The Sailor had already been informed of that. He had 
 tried not to believe it, but facts were growing too strong for 
 him. A superb tear was in the eyes of Miss Dobbs. The 
 sight of it thrilled and startled him. 
 
 Twice before in his life had he seen tears in the eyes of a 
 woman, and with his abnormal power of memory he vividly 
 recalled each occasion now. The first time was in the eyes 
 of Mother, the true woman he would always reverence, 
 when she took off his clothes after his first flight from Black- 
 hampton, and put him into a bath; the second time was in 
 270
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 the eyes of Miss Foldal, and she also was a true woman 
 whose memory he would always honor, when she said good- 
 bye on the night of the second departure from the city of his 
 birth. But the tears in the eyes of Mother and Miss Foldal 
 were not as the superb and terrible tear in the eye of Miss 
 Cora Dobbs. 
 
 "Don't think I blame you, Harry," said that lady with a 
 Jocasta-like note, trying to keep the bitterness out of her 
 tone. "I'm only a lonely and unprotected girl who will soon 
 be on the shelf, but that's no fault of yours. Yet, somehow, 
 I thought you were different. Somehow, I thought you was 
 a gentleman." 
 
 Miss Dobbs had no illusions on that point, but she well 
 knew where the shoe was going to pinch. 
 
 "I'll be a mark and a laughing stock," said the tragic 
 Cora, "as poor Pussy was before Caradoc made up his mind 
 to marry her. While he was plain Bill Jackson nothing was 
 good enough for Pussy. Used to take her to the Coliseum 
 and on the river in the summer, and used to come to her flat 
 a bit lower down the Avenue to take tea with her and her 
 friends every Sunday of his life. And then suddenly Bill 
 came into the title, and poor Pussy got a miss from my lord. 
 We all thought at first she would go out of her mind. She 
 worshiped the ground that Bill walked upon. Besides, she 
 couldn't bear to be made a mark of by her friends ; and being 
 nothing but a straight girl there was always her reputation to 
 consider. Poor Pussy had to take a sleeping draught every 
 night for months. But Caradoc played cricket in the end as 
 he was bound to do, being a gentleman by birth, and Pussy is 
 now a countess with two children, a boy and a girl, and only- 
 last summer she invited me to go and spend a fortnight with 
 her at her place in Ireland, but, of course, I couldn't, because 
 I hadn't the clothes. Still, I'm glad for Pussy's sake. She 
 was always one of the best, was Pussy. All's well that ends 
 271
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 well, isn't it?" And Miss Jocasta Dobbs very abruptly 
 broke down. 
 
 It was a breakdown of the most nerve-shattering kind. 
 The tears streamed down her face. She struggled almost 
 hysterically not to give way, yet the more she struggled, the 
 more she did give way. 
 
 "Miss Dobbs," he gasped, huskily he had known her a 
 long and crowded year, but he had never ventured on 
 Cora "Miss Cora" he had done it now! "I didn't mean 
 nothing." 
 
 Better had he held his peace. 
 
 "You didn't mean anything!" There was a change in 
 the voice of Jocasta. "You didn't mean anything, Mr. Har- 
 per? No, I suppose not." 
 
 The young man drew in his breath sharply. The tone of 
 Miss Dobbs was edged like a knife. 
 
 "It was only a poor and unprotected girl with whom you 
 might play the fool until you had made good. It was only a 
 girl who valued her fair name, a girl who would have died 
 rather than be made a mark of by her friends. I suppose 
 now you are a big man and earning big money, you will take 
 up with somebody else. Well, I'm not the one to grudge 
 any girl her luck." 
 
 The sudden fall in the voice of Miss Dobbs and the half 
 veiled look in her eyes somehow took Henry Harper back to 
 the Auntie of his childhood. And it almost seemed that she 
 also had in her hand a weapon which she knew well how 
 to use. 
 
 "I thought I had a gentleman to deal with," said Miss 
 Dobbs, brushing aside a tear, "but it was my mistake. How- 
 ever, it's never too late to learn." Her laugh seemed to 
 strike him. 
 
 "I didn't mean to mislead you," mumbled the young mars 
 who felt like a trapped and desperate animal. Yet whetx
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 all was said, the emotion uppermost was not for himself. 
 This woman was hurting him horribly, but it was the fact, 
 as he thought, that he was hurting her still more without any 
 intention of evil towards her, which now took possession of 
 his mind. He would do anything to soften the pain he was 
 unwittingly causing. It was not in his nature to hurt a liv- 
 ing thing. 
 
 "I beg pardon, Miss Cora," he said, faintly, "I didn't 
 mean nothing like that." 
 
 She turned upon him, a tigress, and rent him. Nor did he 
 shrink from the wounds she dealt. It was no more than he 
 deserved. He should have learned a little more about ladies 
 and their fine feelings and their social outlook, before daring 
 to go to tea at their private flats and to meet their friends; 
 before daring to be seen with them at a public place like the 
 Coliseum or in a boat on the river. He was receiving a much 
 needed lesson. It was one he would never forget. 
 
 XIV 
 
 HENRY HARPER did not go to tea at King John's 
 Mansions on the next Sunday afternoon. And on 
 the following Sunday he stayed away too. More- 
 over, during the whole of that fortnight Miss Cora Dobbs 
 did not call once at No. 249, Charing Cross Road. 
 
 This was a relief to the young man. He would not have 
 known how to meet her had she come to the shop as usual. 
 He was so shattered by the bolt from the blue that he didn't 
 know in the least what to do. 
 
 Happily there was his work to distract him. Mr. Am- 
 brose had suggested that he should write another tale for 
 Brown's Magazine. He was to take his own time over the 
 new story, bearing ever in mind the advice given him for- 
 273
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 merly, which he had turned to very good account ; and in the 
 meantime, his fancy could expand in the happy knowledge 
 that the "Adventures of Dick Smith" were attracting atten- 
 tion in the magazine. Mr. Ambrose had already arranged 
 for the story to appear as a book when its course had run in 
 Brown's, and he was convinced if prophecy was ever safe in 
 literary matters that real success awaited it. 
 
 Could Henry Harper have put Miss Cora Dobbs out of 
 his thoughts, he might have been almost completely happy in 
 planning and writing the "Further Adventures of Dick 
 Smith." Aladdin's wonderful lamp was making his life a 
 fairy tale. An incredible vista of fame and fortune was 
 spreading before his eyes. Even Mr. Rudge had been 
 stricken with awe by the check for three hundred pounds. 
 
 Yet, at the back of everything just now was a terrible 
 feeling of indecision. There could be no doubt that the 
 great world of which he knew so little, clearly looked to him 
 "to act the gentleman." The phrase was that of the elegant 
 and refined Miss Bonser and the dashing Miss Press, who 
 mixed habitually with gentlemen, and therefore were in a 
 position to speak with authority on such a delicate matter. 
 And so plain was his duty that it had even percolated to 
 Mrs. Greaves, who, in ways subtle and mysterious, seemed 
 to be continually unbosoming herself to a similar tenor. 
 
 In the course of the third week of crisis, Mr. Harper's 
 perplexities were greatly increased by a brief but emotional 
 note, written on elegantly art-shaded notepaper, which had 
 the name "Cora" with a ring round it engraved in the left- 
 hand corner. It said : 
 
 DEAR HARRY, 
 
 \Vhy haven't you been or written? I am feeling so low 
 and miserable that unless you come to see me Sunday, the 
 doctor says I shall have a bad breakdown. 
 
 Yours, CORA. 
 
 274
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Somehow, this letter, couched in such grimly pathetic 
 terms, seemed to leave the young man with no alternative. 
 Therefore, on the following Sunday afternoon, at the usual 
 hour, he was just able to screw up courage to knock at the 
 door of No. 1 06, King John's Mansions. 
 
 He was rather surprised to find Cora in good health; 
 certainly the tone of her letter had implied that such was not 
 the case. She had no appearance of suffering. In tone and 
 manner she was a little chastened, but that was all. 
 
 Miss Bonser and Miss Press were also there when Mr. 
 Harper arrived. But their reception of him was so much 
 more formal than was usual that a feeling of tension was at 
 once created. It was as if these experienced ladies under- 
 stood that some high issue was pending. 
 
 Each of them treated him in quite a different way from 
 that which she had used before. In her own style, each was 
 lofty and grande dame. It was no longer Harry, but Mr. 
 Harper; and they shook hands with him without cordiality, 
 but with quiet dignity, and said, "How do you do?" 
 
 Strange to say, Mr. Harper found this reception more to 
 
 his liking than the less studied manner in which he was 
 
 received as a rule. Now that he had not to meet persiflage 
 
 ) and chaff, he was fairly cool and collected. The stately bow 
 
 , W Miss Press and the archly fashionable handshake of Miss 
 
 * Bonser were much less embarrassing than their habitual 
 
 mode of attack. 
 
 This afternoon, Mr. Harper was treated as a chance 
 acquaintance might have been by three fashionable ladies 
 -who knew the world better than they knew him. There 
 was a subtle note of distance. This afternoon, Miss Press 
 talked books and theaters, and talked them very well, al- 
 though, to be sure, rather better about the latter than the 
 former. Yet in Mr. Harper's judgment, her conversation 
 was more improving than her usual mode of discourse. Had 
 275
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 he not been in such a state of turmoil it would have been 
 quite a pleasure to sit and listen, she talked so well about 
 the things that were beginning to interest him intensely ; also 
 her manner of speaking was extremely refined. 
 
 Miss Bonser talked mainly about the Royal Academy of 
 Arts. She knew a good deal about art, having studied it, 
 although in what capacity she didn't state, before she went 
 to the Maison Perry. Nevertheless, she had both fluency 
 and point; she didn't like Leader so much as she likfd 
 Sargent; she spoke of values, composition, brushwork, 
 draughtmanship, and it was really a pity that Mr. Haiper 
 was not easier in his mind, otherwise he could not have 
 failed to be edified. As it was, Miss Press and Miss 
 Bonser rose considerably in his estimation. He could have 
 wished that they always hoisted themselves on these high 
 subjects. 
 
 Both ladies, wearing white gloves and looking very comme 
 il faut, went soon after five, as they had promised to go on to 
 Lady Caradoc's. Mr. Harper felt quite sorry. They had 
 talked so well about the things that interested him that some- 
 how their distinguished departure left a void. As they got 
 up to go, Mr. Harper, remembering a hint he had received 
 from Miss Press, touching the behavior of a gentleman in 
 such circumstances, sprang to the door, and with less awk- 
 wardness than usual, contrived to open it for them to pass 
 out. 
 
 The ordeal he dreaded was now upon him. He was with 
 Cora alone. However, much to his relief, there was no sign 
 at present of "a bad breakdown." 
 
 For three weeks he had been living in a little private hell 
 of indecision. But now there was a chance of winning 
 through. His duty was not yet absolutely clear, but he was 
 not without hope that it would become so. In that time he 
 had been thinking very hard and very deep. And by some 
 276
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 means, he had added a cubit to his stature since he stood last 
 on that tea-stained hearthrug in the quasi-comfort of that 
 overfurnished "boo-door." It was a new and enlarged Mr. 
 Harper who now confronted a more composed and dignified 
 Miss Dobbs. 
 
 "Well, Harry," said Miss Dobbs, "it is nice to see you 
 here again." 
 
 He was touched by such a tone of magnanimity. Some- 
 how, he felt that it was more than he deserved. 
 
 "How's the new story getting on?" There was not a 
 sign of the breakdown at present. "Will it be as good as the 
 old one?" This was a welcome return to her first phase of 
 generous interest ; to the Miss Dobbs of whom he had mem- 
 ories not wholly unpleasant. 
 
 "I think it is going to be better," he said gravely. "Much 
 better. Anyway, I intend it to be." 
 
 "That's right. I like to hear that. Nothing like ambi- 
 tion. I suppose you'll get another three hundred for this 
 one?" 
 
 "Five," said the young man. "That's if the editor likes 
 it." 
 
 "My!" said Miss Dobbs, with an involuntary flash of the 
 wary eyes. "And that's only for the serial." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And, of course, you'll be able to bring it out as a book 
 as well?" 
 
 "The editor has arranged for that already. For the pres- 
 ent one, I mean." 
 
 "But you'll get paid for it extra, of course!" 
 
 "Oh yes." 
 
 "How much?" Miss Dobbs spoke carelessly, but her 
 eyes were by no means careless. 
 
 "I'll get a shilling for every copy that's sold." 
 
 "And how many will they sell?" 
 277
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Nobody knows that," he said, and from his tone it 
 seemed that aspect of the matter was unimportant. 
 
 "No, I expect not." Her tone coincided readily with his. 
 "But I suppose a man like Stevenson or Bert Hobson would 
 sell by the hundred thousand?" 
 
 "No idea," said the young man. 
 
 "But you ought to have an idea, Harry. It's very im- 
 portant. What you want is somebody with a head for busi- 
 ness to look after your affairs." 
 
 He was inclined to accept this view of the matter, but 
 there would be time to think of that when he really was sell- 
 ing in thousands, which, of course, could not be until the 
 book was published. 
 
 "When will it be published?" 
 
 "Next week." 
 
 "Next week! And you are going to get a sure five 
 hundred, apart from the book, for the story you are writ- 
 ing now?" 
 
 "If Mr. Ambrose likes it." 
 
 "Of course he'll like it. You must make it so good that 
 he can't help liking it." 
 
 "I'll try, anyway." 
 
 Miss Dobbs grew thoughtful. She was inclined to be- 
 lieve, having regard to all the circumstances, that she had a 
 difficult hand to play. Therefore, she began to arrange two 
 or three of the leading cards in her mind. To be perfectly 
 candid with herself, she could not help thinking, and her two 
 friends had confirmed her in that view, that she had shown 
 lack of judgment in the cards she had played already. For 
 one thing, it was agreed that they might have a little un- 
 derrated the size and the weight of the fish that had to be 
 landed. 
 
 Miss Dobbs was a trifle uncertain as to what her next 
 move should be. There was much at stake, and one blunder 
 278
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 in tactics might be fatal. However, she was about to re- 
 ceive assistance of a kind she had felt it would no longer be 
 wise to expect. 
 
 "Miss Dobbs . . . Cora," said the young man, with an 
 abruptness that startled her. "There's something . . . 
 something particular I want to say to you." 
 
 Cora was on guard at once. But she was able to make 
 clear that whatever he might have to say to her, she was 
 prepared to listen. 
 
 "I've been thinking a goodish bit," said Henry Harper, 
 with a quaint stiffening of manner as the gruff words found 
 a way out of him, "about that talk we had the last time I 
 come here." 
 
 Miss Dobbs listened with eyes half shut. Her face was 
 a mask. 
 
 "I don't pretend to know much about what's due to 
 ladies," he said, after a pause so long and so trying that 
 it seemed to hypnotize him. "I've not mixed much in So- 
 ciety" W. M. Thackeray, in whose works he was now tak- 
 ing so much interest, had a great belief in Society "but I 
 should like to do what's straight." 
 
 Silence still seemed the part of wisdom for Miss Dobbs. 
 
 "If I've done wrong, I'm sorry." There was another 
 , very awkward pause to navigate. "But I didn't see no harm 
 ' in what I've done, and that's the truth." 
 
 A very slight sniff from Miss Dobbs ... a very slight 
 sniff and nothing more. 
 
 "If I never speak again, Miss Cora, it's a solemn fact." 
 
 The sniff grew slightly more pronounced. 
 
 "If I had known a bit more about Society, I might not 
 have come here quite so often." 
 
 "What's Society got to do with it, anyway?" suddenly 
 asked Miss Dobbs, who was getting a trifle bored by the 
 word. 
 
 279
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "I don't know," said the young man, "but I thought it 
 had." 
 
 "Why should you think so?" 
 
 "Hasn't it, Miss Cora?" 
 
 At this point, it seemed necessary for Miss Dobbs to re- 
 gard the situation as a whole. A wrong move here might 
 be fatal. 
 
 "Yes, I suppose it has," said she, trying very hard to keep 
 from laughing in his face. "If you put it that way." 
 
 Again there was a pause. Henry Harper seemed to be 
 overawed by this admission on the part of a lady of great 
 experience. 
 
 "I make no claim" Miss Dobbs felt that a little well- 
 timed assistance was called for "if that's what you mean. 
 My reputation's gone, but as I am only a girl, without a 
 shilling, who has to fight her own battle, of course it's not 
 of the slightest consequence." 
 
 "That's just what I want to talk to you about," he said, 
 with a simplicity that made her lip curl in spite of the 
 strong will which ruled it. Zoe was right, it was cruelty 
 to children. 
 
 "Talk away, then," said Miss Dobbs, with dreary and 
 tragic coldness. 
 
 "I just want to do right. I admit I've done wrong. 
 But what I've done, I've done in ignorance. I didn't know 
 it would be against your reputation for me to come here 
 constant, and to take you on the river, and go with you to 
 the theater and the Coliseum." 
 
 "No, I don't suppose you did," said Cora, holding her 
 hand very carefully now that he had been such a fool as to 
 put a weapon in it. "No, I suppose not, Mr. Harper." 
 
 The "Mr." was stressed very slightly, but she felt him 
 flinch a little. 
 
 "Well, Miss Cora," he said huskily, "it's like this. I 
 280
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 just want to do right by you as any other gentleman 
 would." 
 
 "Oh, do you, Mr. Harper." She fixed him with the eye 
 of a basilisk. 
 
 "Yes," he said, and the sweat broke out on his fore- 
 head. "Whatever it's got to be." 
 
 She sensed the forehead rather than saw it. Every nerve 
 in her was now alert. Yet the desire uppermost was to 
 spit in his face, or to dash her fist in it with all the strength 
 she had, but at such a moment she could not afford to give 
 rein to the woman within. She must bide her time. The 
 fish was hooked, but it still remained to land it. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Harper, I am sure you are most kind. But 
 you know better than I can tell you that there is only one 
 thing you can do under the circumstances." And Miss Dobbs 
 suddenly laughed in Mr. Harper's face, in order to show 
 that she was not such a fool as to treat his heroics seriously. 
 
 "What's that, Miss Cora?" he asked, huskily. 
 
 "What's that, Mr. Harper? What innocence! I wonder 
 where you was brought up?" 
 
 "Don't ask that, Miss Cora." He could have bitten 
 out his tongue almost before the words had slipped from 
 it. 
 
 But Miss Cora was not going to be sidetracked at this 
 critical moment by a matter so trivial as Mr. Harper's up- 
 bringing. 
 
 "You take away a straight girl's reputation, you as good 
 as ruin her, and then you come and ask her what you 
 should do about it. What ho, she bumps!" And Miss 
 Dobbs, with an irrelevance fully equal to her final remark, 
 suddenly flung herself down to the further detriment of the 
 broken-springed sofa. 
 
 Mr. Harper, however, was able to recognize this as a 
 cry of the soul of a lady in agony. 
 281
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "If you think I ought to marry you," he said, with dry 
 lips, "I'll do it." 
 
 Miss Dobbs, flopping on the sofa, sat up suddenly wit!) a 
 complete change of manner. 
 
 "It's not what I think, Mr. Harper," she said. "That 
 don't matter. It's what you think that matters. If a man 
 is a gentleman, he don't ask those sort of things." 
 
 "No, I suppose he doesn't," said Mr. Harper, who sud- 
 denly felt and saw the great force of this. "Miss Dobbs 
 . . . Cora. ... I ... I ... will you marry me, Miss 
 Cora?" 
 
 The answer of Miss Cora was to rise from the sofa in the 
 stress of feminine embarrassment. But she did not fall into 
 his arms, as some ladies might have done; she did not even 
 change color. She merely said in an extremely practical 
 voice 
 
 "Harry, you've done right, and I'm glad you've acted 
 the toff. There was those whc said you wouldn't, but we'll 
 not mention names. However, all's well that ends well. 
 And the sooner we get married the better." 
 
 He made no reply. But a slow, deadly feeling had begun 
 to creep along his spine. 
 
 "Do you mind where we are married, Harry?" 
 
 "No," he said, gently, with faraway eyes. 
 
 "I'm all for privacy," said Miss Dobbs, in her practical 
 voice. "I hope you are." 
 
 "Whatever's agreeable to you is agreeable to me." He 
 seemed to feel that that was good W. M. Thackeray. 
 
 "Very well, then, Harry, tomorrow morning at eleven 
 I'll call for you, and we'll toddle round to the Circus and 
 see what the Registrar has to say to us." 
 
 "If that's agreeable to you, it's agreeable to me," he said, 
 sticking doggedly to his conception of the man of the 
 world and the English gentleman. 
 282
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "And now, Harry " But Cora suddenly stopped in 
 
 the very act of advancing upon him. He had read her pur- 
 pose, and she had read his eyes; moreover, she had read the 
 look which those eyes had been unable to veil. With the 
 sagacity upon which Miss Cora Dobbs prided herself if 
 she happened to be perfectly sober she decided to postpone 
 any oscular demonstration of regard for Harry until the 
 next day. 
 
 XV 
 
 IT was not until Tuesday evening that Henry Harper 
 informed the old man who had treated him with such 
 kindness that he had decided to give up his situation. 
 Mr. Rudge was not surprised. Now that the young man's 
 time had become so valuable his master disinterestedly ap- 
 proved this step, although he would regret the loss of such 
 a trustworthy assistant. Henry Harper then felt called 
 upon to explain that he had married Cora that afternoon, and 
 that he was about to transfer his belongings to No. 106, 
 King John's Mansions. 
 
 "You don't mean to say you have gone and got mar- 
 ried ?" said Mr. Rudge. 
 
 "Yes, sir. But Cora wanted it to be kept very quiet, 
 else I should have told you before." 
 
 "Cora who?" asked his master, pushing up his spectacles 
 on to his forehead. 
 
 "Cora Dobbs." 
 
 "Do you mean that niece of Mrs. Greaves?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Goodness gracious me!" Mr. Rudge was never moved 
 to this objurgation except under duress of very high emo- 
 tion. "Goodness gracious me ... why, she's not respect- 
 able!" 
 
 19 283
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Beg your pardon, sir, but there you are wrong." The 
 young man addressed his master with an independence and 
 a dignity that twenty-four hours ago would not have been 
 possible. "Cora is quite respectable and . . . and Cora's 
 a lady. If there's those who think otherwise, it's my fault 
 for . . . for compromising her." To Mrs. Henry Harper 
 belonged the credit for the word "compromising," although 
 it was worthy of W. M. Thackeray himself. 
 
 "Goodness gracious me!" Mr. Rudge mopped his face 
 with a profuse red handkerchief. "Didn't I most strongly 
 warn you against her when I found her that morning in 
 the shop?" 
 
 "You have never once mentioned Cora to me, sir," said 
 Henry Harper respectfully. "And I'm very glad you 
 haven't, because a great wrong's been done her." 
 
 "Didn't I tell you she was up to no good, and that you 
 had better be careful?" 
 
 "No, sir, you never said a single word to me." 
 
 "I certainly meant to do so ... but that's my unfor- 
 tunate memory. I remember I had Charles XII. of Sweden 
 in my head at the time; practically three hundred pages 
 of Volume XXXIII. But it's no excuse. I'll never be able 
 to forgive myself for not having warned you. It's a pity 
 she's Mrs. Greaves' niece, but I'm as sure as Tilly sacked 
 Magdeburg that that girl Cora is not respectable." 
 
 "You are quite mistaken in that, sir," said Henry Harper, 
 with a dignity of an entirely new kind, "because she is now 
 my wife." 
 
 "I beg your pardon, Henry." Mr. Rudge had begun to 
 realize that he was letting his tongue run away with him. 
 "I'd forgotten that. I dare say I have been misinformed." 
 
 "Yes, sir, I am quite sure of that. You have no idea 
 how careful she is in that way. It is because she is so 
 careful that I've married her." 
 284
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Goodness gracious me!" said Mr. Rudge. 
 
 "She is most particular. And so are all her lady friends. 
 And it's because I've been going to her flat and getting her 
 talked about and going to the Coliseum with her, that I 
 thought I ought to act the gentleman." 
 
 "Goodness gracious me! I wouldn't have had this hap- 
 pen for a thousand pounds." 
 
 "I wouldn't, either, sir," said Henry Harper. 
 
 XVI 
 
 WHEN, at the instance of the lady who was now his 
 wife, the young man removed his few belongings 
 to No. 106, King John's Mansions, his first feel- 
 ing was that he had entered quite a different world. He was 
 very sorry to leave Mr. Rudge, who had been a true friend 
 and to whom he had become deeply attached. Also he was 
 sorry to leave that comfortable sitting-room with all its asso- 
 ciations of profitable labor which embodied by far the best 
 hours his life had known. As for the books in the shop, he 
 would miss them dreadfully. 
 
 It was a wrench to leave these things. But at the call 
 of duty it had to be. Cora regarded the change as inevitable, 
 and she saw that it was made at once. From the very 
 hour of their marriage, she took absolute charge of him. It 
 was due to her infinitely greater knowledge of life and of 
 the world that one who was so much a child in these matters 
 should defer to her in everything. He was expected to do 
 as he was told, and for the most part he was perfectly will- 
 ing to fulfil that obligation. 
 
 Almost the first question she asked him, as soon as they 
 were man and wife, was what he had done with the check 
 for three hundred pounds? Her highly developed business 
 285
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 instinct regarded it as more or less satisfactory, that at the 
 suggestion of Mr. Rudge he had opened an account at a 
 bank. It was a very sensible thing to have done, but it 
 would be even more sensible if the money was paid over to 
 her. She also felt that all sums he earned in the future 
 should be banked in her name. There were many advan- 
 tages in such a course. In the first place, only one bank- 
 ing account would be necessary, and she always favored 
 simplicity in matters of business. Again, their money would 
 be much safer with her: she understood its value far better 
 than he. Again, it would be wise if she made all financial 
 arrangements ; a man who had his head full of writing would 
 naturally not want to be bothered with such tiresome things, 
 and he would have the more time to use his pen. 
 
 These arguments were so logical that Harry felt their 
 force. There was no doubt that Cora's head was much 
 better than his. Besides, as she said, with a penetration 
 which was flattering, he lived in a world of his own, and she 
 was quite sure he ought not to be worried by things of that 
 kind. 
 
 Up to a point, this was true. The world Henry Harper 
 lived in at present was largely of his own creation ; and he 
 was content that the wife he had married should take these 
 trite burdens from his shoulders. Moreover, at first he did 
 not regret Mr. Rudge and the old privacy as much as he 
 thought he would. Cora was by no means deficient in com- 
 mon sense, and having had what she knew was a great stroke 
 of luck, she determined to show herself worthy of it by 
 doing her best "to settle down." 
 
 There was prudence and wisdom in this. Mrs. Henry 
 Harper had been a scholar in a very hard school, and she 
 now hoped to profit by its teaching. Therefore, she tried 
 all she knew to make the young man comfortable, not merely 
 because she liked him as much as it was possible for her to 
 286
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 like any man, but also for the more practical reason that 
 he might begin to like her. 
 
 At first his work, which meant so much more to him than 
 ever Cora could, suffered far less than he had feared. To 
 be sure, he missed the books terribly. He had not realized 
 the value of those serried rows in the shop until the time 
 had come to do without them. But Mr. Rudge, in saying 
 good-by to him with distress in his honest eyes, had promised 
 that the run of the shelves should always be his. 
 
 Now there was no longer the bookshop to look after, he 
 had more time for reading and writing, and for gaining gen- 
 eral knowledge. Also Cora had the wisdom to trouble him 
 little. She stayed in bed most of the morning, and as Royal 
 Daylight had strict instructions to walk delicately in going 
 about her household duties, Henry Harper with his habit 
 of rising early was always able to count on a long and un- 
 interrupted morning's work. 
 
 In the afternoon, Cora generally went forth to visit her 
 friends. And as she showed no desire for Harry to accom- 
 pany her, there were so many more precious hours in which 
 he could do as he liked, in which his fancy could expand. 
 In the evening, however, his trials began. After the first 
 few days of matrimony, Cora developed a passion for res- 
 taurants, whither she expected him to accompany her. As a 
 rule they dined at the Roc at the bottom of the Avenue, 
 where there was music and company, and here they some- 
 times fell in with one or another of Cora's circle. Then 
 about twice a week they would go on to a theater or a music 
 hall, and have supper at another restaurant. The young 
 man soon grew aware that if Cora's attention was not fully 
 occupied, she became restless and irritable. 
 
 These evenings abroad gave Henry Harper a feeling of 
 profound discomfort. But he did not complain. It would 
 not have been fair to Cora, who, as she proudly said, gave 
 287
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 him a free hand for the rest of the day. And even the 
 publicity of restaurant life, against his deepest instinct as it 
 was, had compensations quite apart from the performance of 
 duty. There was much to be learned from these places. 
 The Sailor had a remarkable faculty of minute observation. 
 The genie within never slept. Other worlds were swim- 
 ming into his ken. Golden hours were being stolen from 
 his labors, but he was gaining first-hand knowledge of men 
 and things. 
 
 These early days of married life were in some respects 
 the most valuable the Sailor had yet known. He was no 
 longer living entirely in his dreams. So much was coming 
 into his purview which he could not grasp, to which he 
 had hardly a clue, that he had an overmastering desire for 
 more exact information. 
 
 For example, the talk of Cora's numerous friends was 
 almost a foreign language, which left him as a rule with a 
 sense of hopeless ignorance and inferiority. But this merely 
 increased the wish to catch up. Just as a surprisingly brief 
 four years ago he had been tormented with an almost insane 
 desire to read and write and to learn geography and arith- 
 metic, so now he had a terrible craving to enter a world in 
 which Cora moved with such ease and assurance. 
 
 The chief difficulty now was the multiplicity of worlds 
 around him. There was his own private world which none 
 could enter but himself. That was a thing apart. It was 
 made up of the awful memories of his youth: of Auntie, of 
 the slushy streets of Blackhampton, of special editions, of the 
 police, of a December night on the railway, of Mother, of 
 Mr. Thompson, of the Old Man, of the half-deck of the 
 Margaret Carey, of the Island of San Pedro, of the China- 
 man, of Klondyke, of Ginger, of Auntie again, of Miss 
 Foldal, of the final catastrophe; all these memories lay at 
 *he back of the world he inhabited these memories and 
 288
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 the wonderful books he was always studying. Yet enthroned 
 above them all was the Aladdin's lamp that glowed like a 
 star in the right-hand corner of his brain. But even that 
 seemed to be related to other strange, ineluctable forces 
 which lay deep down at the root of his being, in the center 
 of which was the thing he called himself. 
 
 This private cosmos, however, wide as it was, was only 
 an imperceptible speck of the whole. Yet it was all im- 
 portant, because he felt it was the only one he would ever 
 really know. As for this world of Cora's, it was quite out- 
 side his experience. Even the simplest objects in it did not 
 present themselves at the same angle of vision. They were 
 man and wife and went about together, but the worlds they 
 inhabited were so diverse that he soon felt it would never 
 be possible to merge them in one another. 
 
 Then, too, there was the cosmogony of Mr. Rudge. That 
 was a vastly different matter from his own and Cora's, and 
 the great world of the Roc and the Domino where there was 
 continual music and people drank things called liqueurs and 
 wore evening clothes. Again, there was the world of his 
 friend Mr. Ambrose, and beyond this again was the world of 
 those wonderful people whom he used to watch with such 
 solemn delight and curiosity when he paid his Sunday morn- 
 ing pilgrimages to Hyde Park. 
 
 XVII 
 
 EARLY in November "The Adventures of Dick Smith* 
 on the High Seas" was published by a firm with 
 which Mr. Ambrose was connected. It was clear 
 from the first that it was going to succeed. The progress of 
 the story through the chaste pages of Brown's had brought 
 many new readers to that old and respected periodical. The 
 289
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 editor made no secret of the fact that it was the best serial 
 story the magazine had had for years, and as soon as "Dick 
 Smith" appeared as a book it had many friends. 
 
 The notices in the papers, which Mr. Ambrose took the 
 trouble to send to Henry Harper from time to time, were 
 kind to the verge of indiscretion. Almost without exception 
 they summed up the modest and unpretending story in the 
 same way : it was a thing entirely new. The writer saw and 
 felt life with extraordinary intensity, and he had the power 
 of painting it with a vivid force that was astonishing. The 
 effect was heightened by a quaintness of style which seemed 
 to give the impression of a foreigner of great perception us- 
 ing a tongue with which he was unfamiliar. Yet, allowing 
 for every defect, there was a wonderful power of narrative, 
 not unworthy of a Bunyan or a Defoe. A spell was cast 
 upon the reader's mind, which made it very difficult for 
 those who began the book to lay it down until the last page 
 had been read. 
 
 Henry Harper was quite unconscious of the stir he had 
 begun to make in literary circles. One aspect only of a 
 literary success had anything to say to him at first, and that 
 was purely monetary. Moreover, Edward Ambrose, un- 
 affectedly proud of being the sponsor of "the new Steven- 
 son" a generalization so crude as to be very wide of the 
 mark was wise enough to stand between the personality 
 of this half formed but rapidly developing man of genius 
 and the curiosity of his admirers. 
 
 The young man was more than content that Edward 
 Ambrose should take charge of his literary affairs and "dry 
 nurse him" through these early and in some ways very 
 critical months of his fame. And child of nature as the 
 Sailor was, it was a task that could only have been carried 
 through by a man of tact and liberality of mind. 
 
 One day, at the beginning of December, when Henry 
 290
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Harper had been married nearly six weeks the visit to the 
 Registrar round the corner in the Circus had coincided 
 almost exactly with the book publication of the "Adventures 
 of Dick Smith on the High Seas" he received a letter from 
 his friend. It said: 
 
 Bury Street, 
 
 Tuesday. 
 MY DEAR HARPER, 
 
 If you are free, come and dine here on Friday next at 
 eight. There will be two or three men (no ladies!), old 
 friei.ds, and your humble admirers, who would like very 
 much to meet you. Do come if you can. 
 Yours ever, 
 
 EDWARD AMBROSE. 
 
 The Sailor's first instinct, in spite of his confidence in 
 Mr. Ambrose and a liking for him that now amounted to 
 affection, was to decline this invitation. He was well aware 
 that he was not fitted by education and by social opportunity 
 to take his place as the equal of Mr. Ambrose and his friends. 
 Therefore, a summons even in these siren terms, worried him 
 a good deal. It seemed disloyal to deny such a friend for 
 such a reason; but he had learned that the genie who now 
 accompanied him day and night \vherever he went, had one 
 very sinister quality. It had a power of making him mor- 
 bidly sensitive in regard to his own deficiencies. 
 
 In order to end the state of uncertainty into which the 
 letter had thrown him, he showed it to Cora. She advised 
 him to accept the invitation. This Mr. Ambrose, as she 
 knew, had helped him very much, and it would be wise, 
 she thought, for Harry to meet these friends of his, who no 
 doubt would be literary men like Mr. Ambrose himself. 
 
 Cora having made his mind up for him, the young man 
 determined to do his best to lay his timidity aside. After all, 
 there was nothing of which to be ashamed. He was what he 
 291
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 was; and it would be the part of loyalty to a true friend to 
 believe that no harm could come of dining with him. 
 
 All the same, the evening of Friday, December 13, was 
 in the nature of a great ordeal for Henry Harper. Why he 
 should have had this feeling about it was more than he could 
 say. But having duly written and posted his acceptance, he 
 knew no peace of mind until that ominous day was through. 
 
 The evening itself, when it came, began badly. Cora, 
 whom he left at the door of the Roc at a little after half past 
 seven, told him exactly how to get to Bury Street. He 
 would have plenty of time to walk as he had not to be there 
 until eight. But either he did not follow her instructions 
 as carefully as he ought to have done, or he was in a chaotic 
 state of mind, for things went hopelessly awry. He tcok 
 several wrong turnings, had twice to be put right by a police- 
 man, began to wish miserably, when it was too late, that he 
 had taken a taxi, and in the end arrived nearly twenty 
 minutes after eight at Edward Ambrose's door. 
 
 It was a flustered, guilty, generally discomposed Henry 
 Harper who was admitted by Mr. Ambrose's servant, whom 
 he addressed as "Sir." The host and his two other guests 
 were waiting patiently to begin dinner. 
 
 "Here you are," said Edward Ambrose, coming forward 
 to greet the young man almost before he was announced. 
 "I know what has happened, so don't apologize. No good 
 Londoner apologizes for being late, my dear fellow." He 
 then introduced Henry Harper to his two friends, and they 
 went in to dinner. 
 
 The young man was so much upset at first by the absence 
 of a dinner jacket, that he felt he must take an early 
 opportunity of apologizing for that also. This he accord- 
 ingly did with the greatest simplicity, and excused himself 
 on the plea that he had no evening clothes at present, but 
 was intending to get some. 
 
 292
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Before Edward Ambrose could make any remark, his 
 servant, of whom Henry Harper was really more in awe 
 than of anyone else he looked so much more imposing than 
 either his master or his master's guests was asking whether 
 he would have sherry. 
 
 "No, thank you, I'm teetotal," he said to the servant in 
 answer to the invitation. "At least, I'm almost teetotal." 
 For he suddenly remembered that since his marriage he 
 had rather fallen away from grace, yet not to any great 
 extent. 
 
 "Have just half a glass," said Ambrose. "I'm rather 
 proud of this sherry, although that's not a wise thing to say." 
 The host laughed his rich note, which in the ear of Henry 
 Harper was even finer than Klondyke's, if such an admis- 
 sion was not sacrilege ; and his two friends, to whom the 
 latter part of his remark was addressed, echoed his laugh" 
 with notes of their own that were almost equally musical. 
 
 "A simple beverage, warranted harmless," said the host 
 as he raised his glass, making a rather feeble attempt to 
 secure his line of retreat. 
 
 "Plutocrat," said his friend Ellis, who was in the Foreign 
 Office, and who dignified his leisure with writing plays. 
 
 "It's very nice indeed, sir," said Henry Harper, speaking 
 as he felt. He was convinced that this was the nicest wine 
 he had ever tasted to be sure, he had tasted little and 
 that it called for sincere commendation. 
 
 This evening was a landmark in the Sailor's life. Nerv- 
 ously anxious as he had been at the outset, the ease and 
 the simplicity of his three companions, their considered yet 
 not too obviously considered kindness towards him, the dis- 
 creet pains they took to establish him on a basis of equality, 
 could hardly fail of their effect. Very soon Henry Harper 
 began to respond to this new and subtly delightful atmos- 
 phere as a flower responds to the sun.
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 He had never imagined that any dinner could be so 
 agreeable as this one. He had never dreamed of food so 
 choice or cooked so deliciously, or wines of such an exquisite 
 flavor. He had never seen a room like that, or such beautiful 
 silver, or such flowers as those in the bowl in the center of 
 the table. All these things addressed a clear call to the 
 soul of Henry Harper, a call it had never heard before. 
 
 Mr. Ambrose was a delightful host, and not less delight- 
 ful were his friend Mr. Ellis and his other friend Mr. 
 Barrington, yet perhaps Mr. Portman, the servant, who bore 
 himself with apostolic calm and dignity, was really the most 
 wonderful of all. 
 
 Somehow, these three gentlemen, Mr. Ambrose, Mr. Ellis, 
 and Mr. Barrington, continually recalled, by little things 
 they said and the way in which they said them, no less a 
 person than Mr. Esme Horrobin. And to recall that gen- 
 tleman was to evoke the even more august shade of the 
 immortal Klondyke. 
 
 By an odd chance, Mr. Esme Horrobin was to be brought 
 to the mind of Henry Harper in a manner even more direct 
 before dinner was over. By the time they had come to the 
 apples and pears and Mr. Ambrose had persuaded him to 
 have half a glass of port wine, they were all talking freely 
 and frankly together Henry Harper a little less freely and 
 frankly than the others, no doubt, but yet having settled 
 down to enjoy himself more thoroughly than he could ever 
 have thought to be possible when the name of Mr. Esme 
 Plorrobin was suddenly mentioned. It was either Mr. Ellis 
 or Mr. Barrington who mentioned it. The young man was 
 not sure which; indeed, throughout the evening he was 
 not quite sure which was Mr. Ellis and which was Mr. 
 Barrington. Anyhow, after the host had told an anecdote 
 which made them laugh consumedly, although the Sailor 
 vras not quite able to see the point of it, Mr. Ellis-Barring- 
 294
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 ton made the remark, "That story somehow reminds one of 
 Esme Horrobin." 
 
 "Alas, poor Esme!" sighed Mr. Ellis-Barrington with 
 mock pathos. "It's odd, but this story of Ned's, which really 
 seems to handle facts rather recklessly, recalls that distin- 
 guished shade. Alas, poor Horrobin!" 
 
 All three Mr. Ellis, Mr. Harrington, and their host 
 laughed at the mention of that name, but to the acute ear 
 of Henry Harper it seemed that their mirth had suddenly 
 taken a new note. 
 
 "You never met Horrobin," said Mr. Ellis-Barrington to 
 the Sailor. "We were all at Gamaliel with him." 
 
 Mr. Ellis-Barrington was wrong to assume that Mr. 
 Harper had never met Mr. Esme Horrobin. Mr. Harper 
 had not been with Mr. Horrobin at Gamaliel, but he had 
 been with him at Bowdon House. 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Mr. Harper, feeling honorably glad that 
 he could play this part in the conversation. "I have met a 
 Mr. Horrobin of Gamaliel College, Oxford." Somehow, 
 the young man could not repress a thrill of pride in his ex- 
 cellent memory for names and places. 
 
 "Not the great Esme?" cried Mr. Ellis-Barrington with 
 serio-comic incredulity. 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Esme Horrobin," said Henry Harper stoutly. 
 
 "Do tell us where you met the great man?" The voice 
 of .Edward Ambrose was asking the question almost as if it 
 felt that it ought not to do so. 
 
 "I met him, sir, when I was staying at Bowdon House. 
 He was staying there, too, and he used to talk to me about 
 the 'Satyricon' of Petronius Arbiter and the Feast of Trimal- 
 chio." 
 
 For one brief but deadly instant, there was a pause. The 
 odd precision with which the carefully treasured words were 
 spoken was uncanny. But the three friends who had been 
 295
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 with the great Esme Horrobin at Gamaliel somehow felt 
 that an abyss had opened under their feet. 
 
 Edward Ambrose was the first to speak. But the laugh 
 of gay charm was no longer on his lips. There was a look 
 almost of horror in those honest eyes. 
 
 "That's very interesting, my dear fellow," he said, with 
 a change of tone so slight that it was hardly possible to detect 
 it. "Interesting and curious that you should have met 
 Horrobin." And then with a return to carelessness, as 
 though no answer was required to a merely conventional 
 inquiry: "What's he doing now, do you know?" 
 
 The Sailor's almost uncanny power of memory was equal 
 even to that question. 
 
 "He's bear-leading the aristocracy," said the young man, 
 with a proud exactitude of phrase. 
 
 "Oh, really!" 
 
 But in spite of the adroitness of the host, the tact of Mr. 
 Ellis, and Mr. Barrington's feeling for the nuances, another 
 pause followed. For one dark instant it was by no means 
 clear to all three of them that their legs were not being 
 pulled rather badly. This rare and strange young sea mon- 
 ster with a primeval simplicity of speech and manner, who 
 had just absentmindedly quenched his thirst from his finger 
 bowl, might not be all that he appeared. It seemed hardly 
 possible to doubt the bona fides of such a curiously charm- 
 ing child of nature, but. . . . 
 
 For another brief and deadly moment, silence reigned. 
 But in that moment, Mr. Henry Harper, with his new and 
 rather terrible sensitiveness, was beginning to fear that he 
 had committed a solecism. He remembered with a pang 
 that Marlow's Dictionary had been unable to correlate "bear- 
 leading" and "aristocracy." Clearly he had done wrong to 
 make use of a phrase whose significance he did not fully 
 understand, even though it was the phrase most certainly 
 296
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 used by Mr. Esme Horrobin. It was pretending to a knowl- 
 edge you didn't possess, and these gentlemen who had all 
 been to college and to whom, therefore, pretence of any kind 
 was entirely hateful. . . . 
 
 "It's so like him!" The rare laugh of Edward Ambrose 
 had come suddenly to the young man's aid. But the ques- 
 tion for gods and men was: did Mr. Ambrose mean it was 
 so like Mr. Esme Horrobin to be bear-leading the aristocracy, 
 or so like Mr. Henry Harper to be using a phrase whose 
 meaning was beyond him? 
 
 "Alas, poor Esme!" sighed Mr. Ellis-Barrington. 
 
 The Sailor echoed that sigh. His relief was profound 
 that after all a pause so deadly had not been caused by him- 
 self. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 HENRY HARPER at this period of his life was in 
 the grip of a single passion ; the passion to know. 
 Already he had learned that books, wonderful, 
 enchanting as they were, formed only one avenue to the 
 realms of truth. He had now come to realize that there are 
 many secrets in earth and heaven which books, even the 
 wisest of them, are not able to disclose. 
 
 Of late, he had begun to reinforce the thousand and one 
 volumes placed at his disposal by Mr. Rudge with the daily 
 and weekly newspapers, and those contemporaries of Brown's 
 which came out once a month. He had been quite con- 
 founded by the reception given to "Dick Smith" by the pub- 
 lic press. A thing so trivial seemed unrelated to the life 
 of incomprehensible complexity in which he lived. Besides, 
 he was convinced that the merit of the story had been ex- 
 aggerated, as it no doubt had, in accordance with a gener- 
 ous custom of giving a newcomer a fair chance. Still, the 
 297
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 author felt in his own mind that whatever the reviewers 
 found in "Dick Smith" to admire was to be laid to the door 
 of the friend who had made it possible for rhe story to 
 reach the world. 
 
 One of the first fruits of this new craving for exact knowl- 
 edge was to prove bitterly embarrassing. The Sailor had 
 been haunted for several weeks by a report, which he had 
 found among Mr. Rudge's miscellaneous collection, of the 
 royal commission which sat to inquire into the terrible case 
 of Adolf Beck. He became obsessed by the thought that the 
 apparatus of the criminal law in a free country could fasten 
 bonds on an entirely innocent person, could successfully re- 
 sist all attempts to cast them off, and when finally pinned 
 down and exposed to public censure could easily evoke a sec- 
 ond line of defense, which, under juridical forms, freed it 
 of blame in the matter. 
 
 To such an extent did the affair react upon the Sailor's 
 mind that when he called one afternoon upon Edward Am- 
 brose in Pall Mall, he had to make a sad confession. He 
 had been so much troubled by it that he had not been able 
 to work. 
 
 "Ah, but there we come to the core of official England," 
 said Edward Ambrose. "Such miscarriages of justice hap- 
 pen in every country in the world, but the commission which 
 solemnly justifies them on the ground of indisputable com- 
 mon sense could only have happened in this land of ours." 
 
 The young man was grateful for the tone of indignation. 
 It was something to know there was one man in the world 
 who agreed in sum with a certain trite formula which was 
 all he had to work by. It had come to him by accident on 
 the Margaret Carey. . . . Right is right, and wrong is no 
 man's right. 
 
 "You should go to the Old Bailey one day and hear a 
 trial," said Edward Ambrose. "All things that are con- 
 298
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 earned with reality might help you just now. I dare say it 
 will hurt you horribly; but if you are not unlucky in the 
 judge, it may help to restore your faith in your country." 
 
 "Yes, sir, I'll go there one day, as you advise me to," 
 said Henry Harper, as a boy in the fourth form who was 
 young for his age might have said it; and then with curious 
 simplicity: "But I won't much fancy going by myself." 
 
 "I'll come with you," said Edward Ambrose, "if that is 
 how you feel about it." 
 
 Thus it was that one evening, about a fortnight later, 
 Henry Harper received a postcard, which said: 
 
 Meet me outside O. B. 10.30 tomorrow. Murder trial: 
 a strange and terrible drama of passion for two students of 
 the human comedy! E. A. 
 
 On the following morning, the Sailor had already mingled 
 with the crowd outside the Old Bailey when, punctual to 
 the minute, he was joined by his friend. 
 
 "It's brave of you to face it," was his greeting. 
 
 Mr. Ambrose little knew the things he had faced in ths 
 course of his five and twenty years of life, was the thought 
 that ran in the mind of the Sailor. 
 
 They made their way in, and became witnesses of the 
 drama that the law was preparing to unfold. 
 
 The judge began the proceedings, or rather the pro- 
 ceedings began themselves, with a kind of grotesque dignity. 
 After "the jury had been sworn, the prisoner was brought into 
 the dock. Henry Harper gazed at him with an emotion of 
 dull horror. In an instant, he had recognized Mr. Thomp- 
 son, the mate of the Margaret Carey. 
 
 There could be no doubt it was he. Alexander Thomp- 
 son was the name given in the indictment ; besides, the Sailor 
 would have known anywhere that shaggy and hirsute man 
 who had cast such a shadow across his youth. There he was, 
 20 299
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 that grim figure! He had changed, and yet he had not 
 changed. The long, lean, angular body was the same in 
 every awkward line, but the deadly pallor of the face was 
 horrible to see. It was Mr. Thompson right enough, and 
 yet it was not Mr. Thompson at all. 
 
 A surge of memories came upon Henry Harper as he sat 
 in that court. They were so terrible that he could hardly 
 endure them. He did not hear a word that was being 
 spoken by the barrister who, in even and impartial tones, 
 was reciting the details of a savage but not ignoble crime. 
 The Sailor was thousands of miles away in the Pacific; the 
 groves of the Island of San Pedro were rising through the 
 morning mists; he could hear the plop-plop of the sharks 
 in the water; he could hear the Old Man coming up on 
 deck. 
 
 "That man looks capable of anything," whispered Ed- 
 ward Ambrose. 
 
 The Sailor had always been clear upon that point. There 
 was the drive to the docks in a cab through the rain of the 
 November night in his mind. Again he was a helpless waif 
 of the streets seated opposite Jack the Ripper. He almost 
 wanted to scream. 
 
 "Would you rather not stay?" whispered his friend. 
 
 "I'm not feeling very well," said Henry Harper; there- 
 upon they left the court and went out into the street. 
 
 They walked along Holborn in complete silence. To the 
 Sailor the fellowship, the security, the friendliness of that 
 crowded street were a great relief. His soul was in the 
 grip of awful memories. Even the man at his side could 
 not dispel them. Mr. Ambrose was much farther away 
 just now than the Old Man, the Island of San Pedro, and 
 the savage and brutal murderer to whom he owed his life. 
 
 For days afterwards, the mind of the Sailor was domi- 
 nated by Mr. Thompson. He learned from the newspapers 
 300
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 that tht mate of the Margaret Carey was condemned to 
 death, and that he awaited the last office of the law in Dais- 
 ton Prison. One day, an odd impulse came upon him. He 
 bought some grapes and took them to the prison, and with' 
 a boldness far from his character at ordinary times, sought 
 permission to see the condemned man. 
 
 As Mr. Thompson had only one day more to live, and 
 not one of his friends had visited him for the simple rea- 
 son that he had not a friend in the world, the governor of 
 the prison, a humane man, gave the Sailor permission to 
 see the mate of the Margaret Carey. 
 
 Behind iron bars and in the presence of a warder, Henry 
 Harper was allowed to look upon Mr. Thompson, to speak 
 to him, and to offer the grapes he had brought him. But 
 a dreadful shock awaited the young man. He saw at once 
 that there was nothing human now in the man who was 
 ranging his cell like a caged beast. 
 
 "Don't you know me, Mr. Thompson?" cried Henry 
 Harper feebly, through the bars. 
 
 The mate of the Margaret Carey paid no heed to his 
 voice, but still paced up and down. 
 
 "Don't you know me, Mr. Thompson? I'm Sailor." 
 
 For a fraction of time, the condemned man turned sav- 
 age, unutterable eyes upon him. They were those of a 
 wild beast at bay. 
 
 "There's no God," he said. 
 
 He dashed his head against the wall of his cell. 
 
 XIX 
 
 HENRY HARPER was now in a universe of infinite 
 complexity. The genie who lived in the wonder- 
 ful lamp in his brain had taught him already that 
 he knew nothing about whole stellar spaces in this strange 
 301
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 cosmos that he, the thing he called himself, inhabited. More- 
 over, it presented many problems. Of these the most instant 
 and pressing was Cora. 
 
 It was no use mincing the matter: Cora and he were 
 not getting on. There was no bond of sympathy between 
 them. His work and all that went with it were far more to 
 him than the woman he had married. And when this fact 
 came home to her, she began to resent it in a contemptuous 
 way. It made it more difficult for both that his work only 
 appealed to her in one aspect, and that the one which least 
 appealed to him. The hard and continuous labor it in- 
 volved meant nothing to her; the hopes and the fears of an 
 awakening artistic sense were things beyond her power to 
 grasp ; if his work had not a definite commercial value, if it 
 could not be rendered in pounds and shillings, it was a 
 waste of time and worse than meaningless. Everything 
 apart from that was a closed book as far as she was con- 
 cerned. She began to despise his timidity and his ignorance, 
 and the time soon came when she did not hesitate to sneer at 
 him before her friends. 
 
 For one thing, she was bitterly resentful. It was useless 
 to disguise that he was not merely indifferent to her physical 
 charms, he positively disliked and even dreaded that aspect 
 of their life together. Within a very short time after their 
 marriage, he made the discovery that she drank. 
 
 Even before that knowledge came he had discerned some- 
 thing unwholesome about her. The blackened eyebrows, the 
 rouged cheeks, the dyed hair, the overfine presence, the 
 stealthy, cloying color of scent she exuded, the coarse mouth, 
 the apathetic eyes, had always been things that he dared 
 not let his mind rest upon in detail even before he had 
 taken them unto himself. And now that he had done so at 
 the call of duty, and with even that to sustain him, he fore- 
 saw that he must come to dislike them more and more. It 
 302
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 hardly needed a pervading reek of brandy in her bedroom to 
 read the future. 
 
 Unluckily for Cora, the monotony of a "straight" life 
 with such a humdrum young man was more than she could 
 stand for any length of time. The old fatal habit was soon 
 upon her again. Years of yielding had weakened her will; 
 and now she was beginning to grow contemptuous of her 
 husband perhaps as a requital of his apathy towards her 
 she began to assume a defiant carelessness, first of man- 
 ner and then of conduct. 
 
 Disaster was foreshadowed by several quarrels. None of 
 these were serious, but they showed the inevitable end to- 
 wards which matters had begun to drift. Henry Harper 
 was not the sort of man with whom it was easy to quarrel; 
 he had no aptitude for a form of reflex action quite alien to 
 his nature. All the same, there were times when he was 
 almost tempted to defend himself from Cora's perpetual 
 sneers at his dullness, not only in her company, which was 
 bad enough, but in that of her friends, which was worse. 
 
 Her chief complaint was his bearing in restaurants and 
 public places. He had not a word to say for himself; he 
 let "the girls" and "the boys" Cora included her whole 
 exceedingly numerous acquaintance in these terms "come 
 it over him"; he took everything lying down; and she 
 couldn't understand why a man who was as clever as he was 
 supposed to be "didn't let himself out a bit now and again." 
 
 Ha'rry's social maladroitness became a very sore subject. 
 It annoyed Cora intensely that the boys and the girls should 
 so consistently "make a mark of him." His inability to hit 
 back seemed to be a grave reflection upon her judgment and 
 igood taste in marrying him. The time soon came when she 
 told him that if he couldn't show himself a little brighter in 
 company, he could either stay at home of an evening or go 
 his way, and she would go hers. 
 303
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 As a fact, neither alternative was irksome to Henry 
 Harper. But the ultimatum hurt him very much. The odd 
 thing was that in spite of the nipping atmosphere to which 
 his sensitiveness was exposed, it seemed to grow more acute. 
 He had a very real sense of inferiority in the presence of 
 others. Not only did he suffer from a lack of any kind of 
 social training, but even the few counters he was painfully 
 acquiring in a difficult game he had not the art of playing to 
 advantage. Thus he was only too glad to accept Cora's 
 ukase. It was a merciful relief to sit at home in the evening 
 and eat the meager cold supper that Royal Daylight pro- 
 vided, and then go on with his work to what hour he chose, 
 instead of being haled abroad at the heels of a superfashion- 
 able and therefore hyperdisdainful Cora to public places, 
 where he was always at a miserable disadvantage. 
 
 She thus formed a habit of sallying forth alone in the 
 evening. Although she sometimes returned after midnight 
 in a slightly elevated condition, or in her own words, 
 "inclined to be market merry," her husband had too little 
 knowledge of life to be really suspicious or even deeply 
 resentful. 
 
 Under the new arrangement, which suited the young 
 man so well, he was able to attend public lectures at various 
 places, the Polytechnic in Regent Street, the British Mu- 
 seum, the London Institution, the South Kensington Mu- 
 seum, and other centers of light. These helped him in certain 
 ways. He was no dry-as-dust. Already his eyes were set 
 towards the mountain peaks, yet with a humility that was 
 perhaps his chief asset, he felt it to be in the power of all 
 men to help him upon his journey. 
 
 Twice a week, now, after an early supper, he would go 
 
 to a lecture. When it was over, h?. would often take a 
 
 stroll about the streets in order to observe the phantasmagoria 
 
 around him of which he knew so little. Yet his eager mind 
 
 304
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 was looking forward to a time when all should be made 
 clear by the play of the light that shines in darkness. 
 
 As a rule, he would finish his evening's excursion with a 
 cup of coffee and a sandwich at Appenrodt's in Oxford Cir- 
 cus. And then thinking his wonderful thoughts, he would 
 take a final enchanted stroll homewards to the Avenue, to 
 No. 106, King John's Mansions, where his work and his 
 books awaited him. Sometimes, however, he was greatly 
 troubled with the thought of Cora. It was idle to disguise 
 the ever growing sense of antagonism that was arising be- 
 tween them. But she went her way and he went his. The 
 financial arrangement they had now come to was that he 
 should pay the rent of the flat and all household expenses, 
 and as Cora had apparently no money of her own, he also 
 allowed her half of what remained of his income. 
 
 One evening in the summer, as he was walking slowly 
 down Regent Street, a man and a woman passed him in an 
 open taxi. The woman was Cora, and the man, who was in 
 evening dress, appeared to have his arm around her waist. 
 The sight was like a blow in the face. And yet it was a 
 thing so far outside his ken that it was impossible to know 
 exactly what it meant. For a moment he was dazed. He 
 did not know how to regard it, or in what way to deal with 
 it. To begin with, and perhaps oddly, it did not make him 
 particularly angry. Why he was not more angry, he didn't 
 know. No doubt it was because he was growing to dislike 
 Cora so intensely. But as he walked slowly to King John's 
 Mansions he still had the curious feeling of being half 
 stunned by a blow. 
 
 He went to bed without awaiting her return. She had 
 recently taken to coming home very late. Partly because of 
 this, and partly in consequence of the condition in which 
 she often returned, he had insisted for some little time past 
 upon a bedroom of his own. This she had been very un- 
 305
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 willing to concede, but he had fought for it and had in the 
 end won; and tonight as he turned in and locked the door, 
 he determined that no power on earth should cause him to 
 yield the spoils of victory. He got into bed with hideous 
 phantoms in his mind. But the thought uppermost was that 
 he had turned yet another page of experience. And there 
 suddenly in the midst of the flow and eddy of his fancies, 
 the awful face of Mr. Thompson emerged at the foot of 
 the bed. He could almost hear the mate of the Margaret 
 Carey dash his head against the wall of his cell. 
 
 He put forth all his power of will in the hope of induc- 
 ing sleep, but before it showed signs of coming, he heard 
 Cora's latchkey fumbling at the front door of the flat. She 
 opened it with a rattle, and closed it with a bang; and then 
 he heard her come stumbling along the passage, her fuddled 
 voice uplifted in the mirthless strain of a music hall ditty. 
 
 With a sensation of physical nausea, he heard her try the 
 handle of the bedroom door. And then there came a knock. 
 
 "Let me in, ducky." 
 
 He didn't answer, but pulled the bedclothes over his head. 
 
 "Let me in, ducky. I want to kiss you good night." 
 
 In spite of the bedclothes, he could still hear her. 
 
 Receiving no answer, she beat upon the door again. 
 
 "Don't then" he could still hear her You are no good, 
 anyway." 
 
 She then stumbled to her own room singing "Ta-ra-ra- 
 boom-de-ay" with cheerful defiance, and slammed the door. 
 
 XX 
 
 THE next day Cora was not visible until about two 
 o'clock, which was now her invariable rule. They 
 lunched together. He could hardly bring himself to 
 eat the comfortless meal with her. But, after all, he had 
 306
 
 " 'I was a bit on last night,' she said, with well-assumed humility."
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 taken her for better or for worse. He must keep his part 
 of the contract, therefore it was no use being squeamish. 
 
 He waited until the meal was over and Royal Daylight 
 had cleared the table, and had also cleared away herself, be- 
 fore he mentioned the taxi. And then very bluntly, and in 
 a tone entirely new to her as well as to himself, he demanded 
 an explanation. 
 
 Cora, it seemed, was in a rather chastened mood. For one 
 thing, she was now sober, and when she was sober she was 
 not exactly a fool. She was not really repentant. He was 
 too poor a thing to make a self-respecting woman repent. 
 But now she was again herself, she was both shrewd and 
 wary; after all, this double-adjectival idiot was the goose that 
 laid the golden eggs. 
 
 "I was a bit on last night," she said, with well-assumed 
 humility. 
 
 "Yes, I heard you was when you come home," he said, 
 with the new note in his voice that she didn't like. 
 
 "Oh, so you did hear." She suddenly determined to 
 carry the war into the enemy's country. "Why didn't you 
 open it, then?" 
 
 The cold impudence stung. 
 
 "I'd rather have died than have opened it to a cow like 
 you." He hardly knew the words he used. They had seemed 
 to spring unbidden from the back of beyond. 
 
 She half respected him for speaking to her in that way, 
 and in~ such a tone ; there was perhaps a little more to the 
 double-adjectival one than she had guessed. And as the 
 cards were dead against her now, she decided on a strategic 
 grovel of pathos and brandy. 
 
 "Call yourself a gentleman?" Tears sprang reluctantly 
 to the raddled cheek. 
 
 The sight of a lady in tears, even a lady who drank, was 
 a little too much for Henry Harper. 
 307
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "I beg your pardon," he said. "I oughtn't to have said 
 that." He had remembered that the word "cow" as applied 
 to the female sex was a Blackhampton expression and a 
 favorite with Auntie. 
 
 The lady could only weep a little more profusely. This 
 mug was as soft as butter. 
 
 He stood looking at her with tight lips and with eyes of 
 sorrowful disgust. 
 
 "But you've no right to drink as much as you do," he 
 said, determinedly. "And you've no right to ride in taxis 
 with gentlemen and to let them put their arms round you." 
 
 "And you've no right to call your own lawful wife a 
 cow," she said, tearfully. 
 
 "I've apologized for that," he said. "But you've given 
 me no explanation of that gentleman." 
 
 "Didn't I say I was a bit on," she said aggrievedly. 
 
 "It's no excuse. It makes it worse." 
 
 "Yes, it does," said Mrs. Henry Harper, with a further 
 grovel, "if it happened. But it didn't happen. You was 
 mistaken, Harry. I'm too much the lady to let any gentle- 
 man, whether he was in evening dress or whether he wasn't, 
 put his arm around me in a taxi. I wouldn't think of it now 
 I'm married. Now, you kiss your Cora, Harry, for calling 
 her a name." 
 
 She approached him with pursed lips. In spite of the 
 shame he felt for such a lapse from his official duties, he 
 retreated slowly before her. 
 
 "It's no use denying it," he said, as soon as the table 
 had been placed successfully between them. "I saw his arm 
 round you." 
 
 "You are mistaken, Harry." She did not like the look 
 or the sound of him. She was beginning to be alarmed at 
 her own folly. "I may have been a bit on, but I was not 
 as bad as that. Honest." 
 
 308
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "I saw what I saw," he persisted; and then feeling no 
 longer able to cope with her or the situation, he slipped out 
 of the room and out of the flat. 
 
 He had now to look forward in a dim way to the time 
 when he would have to leave her. The time was not yet, 
 but he was beginning to feel in the very marrow of his bones 
 that it was near. Now that her secret was out and a 
 hopeless deterioration had begun, there was something so 
 revolting in the whole thing that he foresaw already their 
 life together could have only one end. But in the mean- 
 time, he must be man enough to keep with a stiff upper lip 
 a contract he ought never to have made. 
 
 Apart from his domestic relations, things were going very 
 well indeed with him. He had completed the "Further 
 Adventures of Dick Smith" to the satisfaction of Mr. Am- 
 brose, and it was on the point of starting in the magazine. 
 Moreover, the first series had won fame on both sides of 
 the Atlantic. It was felt, so rare was its merits, that if 
 Henry Harper never wrote anything else his reputation 
 was secure for twenty years. 
 
 This, of course, was an amazing piece of fortune. Ed- 
 ward Ambrose, who had had no small share in bringing it 
 about, and whose discriminating friendship had made it pos- 
 < sible, compared it, in his own mind, with the success of 
 ' Dickens, who, after a life of poverty and hardship, gained 
 immortality at five and twenty. It was far too soon as yet 
 to predict such a crown for Henry Harper, but he had cer- 
 tainly burst upon the world as a full-fledged literary curi- 
 osity. His name was coming to be in the mouth of all who 
 could appreciate real imagination. 
 
 One of the first fruits of this success was his election to 
 
 the Stylists' Club. This distinguished and esoteric body 
 
 met on the afternoon of the first Tuesday of the autumn 
 
 and winter months at Paradine's Hotel in Upper Brook 
 
 309
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Street, Berkeley Square, to discuss Style. Literary style 
 only was within the scope of its reference; at the same 
 time, the members of the club carried Style into all the 
 appurtenances of their daily lives. Not only were they 
 stylists on paper, they were stylists in manner, in dress, in 
 speech, in mental outlook. The club was so select that it 
 was limited to two hundred members, as it was felt there 
 was never likely to be more than that number of persons in 
 the metropolis at any one time who could be expected to pos- 
 sess an authentic voice upon the subject. Happily, these 
 were not all confined to one sex. The club included ladies. 
 
 That the Stylists' Club, of all human institutions, should 
 have sought out Henry Harper for the signal honor of mem- 
 bership, seemed a rare bit of byplay on the part of Provi- 
 dence. For a reason which he could not explain, Edward 
 Ambrose gave a hoot of delight when the young man brought 
 to him the club's invitation, countersigned by its president, 
 the supremely distinguished Mr. Herbert Gracious, whose 
 charmingly urbane "Appreciations," issued biennially, were 
 known wherever the English language was in use. Mr. 
 Herbert Gracious was not merely a stylist himself, he was a 
 cause of style in others. 
 
 Henry Harper had been a little troubled at first by the 
 hoot of Mr. Ambrose, and the feeling of doubt it inspired 
 was not made less by a rather lame defense. All the same', 
 Mr. Ambrose so frankly respected the young man's intense 
 desire to improve himself that he urged him to join the club, 
 and to attend the first meeting, at any rate, of the new ses- 
 sion, if he felt he would get the least good out of it. 
 
 In response to a basely utilitarian suggestion, Henry Har- 
 per said he would do so. He was not in a frame of mind 
 to face such an ordeal. But he must not let go of himself. 
 Miserable as he was, he felt he must take such advice if only 
 to prove his courage. He would attend the first meeting of 
 310
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 the Stylists' Club on the ground of its being good for the 
 character, if on no higher. 
 
 "I suppose you'll be there, sir?" 
 
 "No," laughed Mr. Ambrose. "I'm not a member. It's 
 a very distinguished body." 
 
 Henry Harper looked incredulous. It did not occur to 
 him that anybody could be so distinguished as to exclude 
 such a man as Edward Ambrose. 
 
 "I don't think I'll go, then," said Henry Harper. "It 
 will be a bit lonesome-like." 
 
 "Please do. And then come and tell me about it. Your 
 personal impression will be valuable." 
 
 It was for this reason that the Sailor finally decided not 
 to show the white feather. 
 
 XXI 
 
 HENRY HARPER found the Stylists' Club of far 
 greater interest than he thought it would be. To 
 one as simple as he it was a very stimulating body. 
 Moving precariously towards fresh standards of life, he knew 
 at once that he was in a strange new world. He knew 
 even before a powdered footman had led him across the par- 
 queted floors of Paradine's Hotel, and a personage hardly 
 less gorgeous had announced him to the congeries of stylists 
 who had assembled to the number of about sixty. 
 
 "It is such a pleasure, Mr. Harper," said a large, florid, 
 benign and beaming gentleman, seizing him by the hand. 
 "You will find us all at your feet." 
 
 Mr. Harper was overawed not a little by the size and the 
 distinction of the company, but the benign and beaming 
 gentleman, who was no less a person than Mr. Herbert 
 Gracious himself, took him in charge and introduced him 
 to several other gentlemen, most of whom were benign but
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 not beaming, being rather obviously preoccupied with a sense 
 of Style. Indeed, Mr. Herbert Gracious was the only one 
 of its members who did beam really. The others were far 
 too deeply engaged with the momentous matters they had 
 met to consider. 
 
 When Mr. Henry Harper had been allowed to subside 
 into a vacant chair in the midst of six stylists, four of whom 
 were female and two of whom were male, he was able to 
 pull himself together a little. He knew already that he was 
 in very deep waters indeed : Mr. Esme Horrobins and Mr, 
 Edward Ambroses were all around him. And these ladies 
 . . . these ladies who waved eyeglasses stuck on sticks were 
 not of the Cora and the Miss Press and the Miss Bonser 
 breed ; they were of the sort that Klondyke put on a high hat 
 and a swallowtail to walk with in Hyde Park. Yes, even 
 for a sailor, he was in very deep waters just now, and he 
 was obliged to tell himself once again, as he always did in 
 such circumstances, that having sailed six years before the 
 mast there was nothing in the world to fear. 
 
 All the same, at first he was very far from being happy. 
 A dozen separate yet correlated discussions upon Style had 
 been interrupted by his entrance. The announcement, "Mr. 
 Henry Harper," had suspended every conversation. For a 
 moment all the Mr. Esme Horrobins were mute and in- 
 glorious. But then, having glutted their gaze upon one 
 whom Mr. Herbert Gracious himself had already crowned 
 in the Literary Supplement of the Daily Age and Lyre, the 
 Mr. Esme Horrobins and the Mrs. Esme Horrobins the 
 mere male was not allowed to have it all his own way in 
 this discussion upon Style took up the theme, 
 
 It was the part of Mr. Henry Harper to listen. The 
 
 public press of England and America had compared his 
 
 own style to that of Stevenson, Bunyan, Defoe, the Bible, 
 
 Shakespeare, Lastitia Longborn Gentle, Memphis Mort- 
 
 312
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 main Mimpriss, finally Dostoievsky, and then Stevenson 
 again. In a true analysis Stevenson would have defeated all 
 the other competitors together, leaving out Dostoievsky, who 
 was a bad second, and excluding the Bible, Shakespeare, and 
 Memphis Mortmain Mimpriss, who, to their great discredit, 
 were an equally bad third. Stevenson was first and the 
 rest nowhere. And there that glorious reincarnation sat, 
 in a modest blue suit, but looking very neat and clean, lis- 
 tening to every word that fell in his vicinity from the lips 
 of the elect. At least, that was, as far as it was possible 
 for one human pair of ears to do so. 
 
 "Tell me, Mr. Harper," said Miss Carinthia Small, with 
 all Kensington upon her eyebrows, imperiously attacking with 
 a stick eyeglass, which she wobbled ferociously, this very 
 obvious young genius who didn't know how to dress prop- 
 erly, as soon as Mr. Marmaduke Buzzard M.B. of the 
 Stylists' Review had allowed her, much against his will and 
 for purely physical reasons, to get in a word. "Tell me, Mr. 
 Harper, exactly how you feel about Dostoievsky? Where 
 do you place him? Before Meredith and after Cuthbert 
 Rampant, or before Cuthbert Rampant and after Thomas 
 Hardy?" 
 
 It was a dismal moment for Mr. Henry Harper. For- 
 tunately he hesitated for a fraction of an instant, and he 
 was saved. That infinitesimal period of time had given Mr. 
 Marmaduke Buzzard his chance to get in again. And stung 
 by the public acclamation of Mr. Cuthbert Rampant, a well- 
 nourished young man in a checked cravat, who was curving 
 gracefully over Miss Carinthia Small, he proceeded to show 
 with some little violence, yet without loss of temper, that 
 in any discussion of style qua style, Turgenieff alone of 
 the Russians could possibly count. 
 
 "But everybody knows," breathed the defiant Miss Ca- 
 rinthia in the charmed ear of Mr. Cuthbert Rampant, "that 
 313
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 had it not been for Dostoievsky, the 'Adventures of Dick 
 Smith' could never have been written at all." 
 
 The considered reply of Mr. Cuthbert Rampant was lost 
 in the boom and the rattle of Mr. Marmaduke Buzzard's 
 heavy artillery. 
 
 Henry Harper might have sailed six years upon the high 
 seas, but a flood of deep and perplexing waters was all around 
 him now. Stylists to right of him, stylists to left of him, all 
 discoursing ex cathedra upon that supreme quality. Never, 
 since the grim days of the Margaret Carey had he felt a 
 sterner need to keep cool and hold his wits about him. But 
 with the native shrewdness that always stood to him in a 
 crisis, he had grasped already a very important fact. It 
 must be the task just now of the new Stevenson to sit 
 tight and say nothing. 
 
 To this resolve he kept honorably. And it was less diffi- 
 cult than it might have been had not Style alone been the 
 theme of their discourse, had not this been an authentic body 
 of its practitioners, and had not "The Adventures of Dick 
 Smith" been acclaimed as the finest example of pure narrative 
 seen for many a year. All through the period of tea and 
 cake, which Mr. Henry Harper contrived to hand about 
 with the best of them, being honestly determined not to mind 
 his inferior clothes and absence of manner, because, after 
 all, these things were less important than they seemed at the 
 moment, he kept perfectly mute. 
 
 Nevertheless he had one brief lapse, It was after he had 
 drunk a cup of tea and the undefeated Miss Carinthia Small 
 had drunk several, and Mr. Marmaduke Buzzard had re- 
 tired in gallant pursuit of some watercress sandwiches, that 
 the dauntless lady felt it to be her duty to draw him out. 
 
 "Tell me, Mr. Harper," said she, "what really led you to 
 Stevenson ?" 
 
 So much was the novice troubled by the form of the ques- 
 3H
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 tion that she decided to restate it in a simpler one, although 
 heaven knew it was simple enough already! 
 
 "What is your favorite Stevenson?" she asked, looking 
 Mr. Cuthbert Rampant full in the eye with an air of the 
 complete Amazon. 
 
 The author of "The Adventures of Dick Smith" was, 
 bound to speak then. Unfortunately he spoke to his own," 
 undoing. 
 
 "I've only read one book by Stevisson," he said, in a 
 voice of curious penetration which nervousness had rendered 
 loud and strident. 
 
 "Pray, which is that?" asked Miss Carinthia Small in icy 
 tones. 
 
 "It's the one called 'Virginibus Puerisk,' " said Mr. Henry " 
 Harper. 
 
 Miss Carinthia Small felt that a pin might have been 
 heard to fall in Upper Brook Street, Berkeley Square. Mr. 
 Cuthbert Rampant shared her emotion. Yet the area of the 
 fatal silence did not extend beyond Mr. Marmaduke Buz- 
 zard, who had already reopened fire a short distance away, 
 and was again doing immense execution. 
 
 Miss Carinthia Small and Mr. Cuthbert Rampant risked 
 no further discussion of Stevisson with this strange young 
 Visigoth from the back of beyond. Neither of them could 
 have believed it to be possible. When he had been first 
 ushered into the room by the benign Herbert, and had 
 modestly sat down, he had looked so clean and neat, and 
 anxious to efface himself that he might have been a product 
 of some self-respecting modern university who was on a 
 reconnaissance from a garden suburb. But how could that 
 have been their thought! This was a cruel trick that some- 
 body had played upon Herbert. There was malice in it, too. 
 Dear Herbert, England's only critic, the British Sainte 
 Beuve, had had his leg pulled in a really wicked manner I 
 21 315
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 He had always prided himself upon being democratic and 
 inclusive, but there was a limit to everything. 
 
 Happily the Sailor did not stay much longer. Many 
 stylists were going already. It had been an interesting 
 experk ice for the young man. If he had gained nothing 
 beyond a cup of lukewarm tea and a cucumber sandwich, 
 he certainly felt very glad that he had had the courage to 
 face it. 
 
 "Good-by, ma'am," he said, squeezing a delicate white 
 glove in a broad and powerful grip. "I'm very proud to 
 have met you. What else ought I to read of Stevisson?" 
 
 Miss Carintha Small felt an inclination to laugh. But 
 yet there was something that saved him. What it was she 
 didn't know. She only knew it was something that Win- 
 chester and New College in the person of Mr. Cuthbert 
 Ra.npant did not possess. 
 
 "Good-by." There was really very little of the stylist 
 in her voice, although she was not aware of it, and would 
 have been quite mortified had such been the case. "And you 
 must read 'Treasure Island.' It is exactly your style, al- 
 though 'Dick Smith' is very much deeper and truer and to 
 my mind altogether more sincere." 
 
 Miss Carinthia Small had not meant to say a word of 
 this. She had not meant to say anything. She had intended 
 to efface this young man altogether. 
 
 The Sailor threaded his way through a perfect maze of 
 stylists with almost a sense of rapture. It had been a de- 
 lightful adventure to converse on equal terms with a real 
 Hyde Park Lady: a brilliant creature who had neither 
 chaffed him nor hit him in the back, nor addressed him as 
 "Greased Lightning," nor had rebuked him with "Damn 
 you." He walked out on air. 
 
 As the author of "The Adventures of Dick Smith" was 
 retrieving his hat from the hotel cloak room, he was sud-
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 dcnly brought to earth. Two really imperial stylists were 
 being assisted into elaborate fur coats by two stylists among 
 footman. 
 
 "My dear Herbert." An abnormally quick ear caught 
 the half humorous, half indignant remark, in spite of the 
 fact that it was uttered in a very low tone. "This man 
 Harper ... I assure you the fellow hasn't an aitch to his 
 name." 
 
 XXII 
 
 IT was not until Henry Harper had escaped from Para- 
 dine's Hotel and had managed to find a way into Re- 
 gent Street that the words he had overheard seemed 
 to hit him between the eyes. His mind had been thrown 
 back years, to Klondyke and the waterlogged bunk in the 
 half-deck of the Margaret Carey. He recalled as in a dream 
 the great argument he had dared to maintain as to the true 
 manner of spelling his name, and how, finally, he had been 
 compelled to give in. Ever since that time, he had always 
 put in the aitch in deference to his friend's superior ar- 
 tillery, which included Greek and Latin and other surprising 
 things. 
 
 It was clear, however, that it was not a bit of use putting 
 the letter aitch in your name unless you included it in your 
 speech as well. It was amazing that he had not grasped such 
 a simple truth until that moment. He had known, of course, 
 for some little time now, in fact, ever since he had met Mr. 
 Esme Horrobin at Bowdon House that his manner of speak- 
 ing only very faintly resembled that in vogue in college and 
 society circles. 
 
 On the edge of the curb at Piccadilly Circus, waiting to 
 make the perilous crossing to the Avenue, the crushing force 
 of the remark he had overheard seemed to come right home 
 317
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 to him. Moreover, as he stood there he saw in an almost 
 fantastically objective way that the letter aitch should be 
 attended to at once. He must not be content merely to 
 improve his mind, he must improve himself in every possible 
 manner. 
 
 It was here, as he stood in deep thought, that his old 
 friend Providence came rather officiously to his aid. A 
 derelict walked past him in the gutter, and on the back of 
 the human wreck was fixed a sandwich board bearing the 
 legend : 
 
 Madame Sadleir gives lessons daily by appointment in 
 voice production, elocution, correct speaking, and deport- 
 ment. Apply for terms at 12, Portugal Place, W. 
 
 This was very friendly of Providence. The young man 
 knew that two minutes ago he had passed Portugal Place. 
 He was strung up to the point of adventure. This too long 
 neglected matter was so vital to one who desired to mix 
 with stylists on equal terms, that it would be the part of 
 wisdom to see about it now. 
 
 At this moment thought was action with Henry Harper. 
 Therefore he turned almost at once and retraced his steps 
 into Regent Street. Within a very short time he was as- 
 sailing the bell pull of 12, Portugal Place, W., third floor. 
 
 Providence had arranged that Madame Sadleir should be 
 at home. She was alone, moreover, in her professional 
 chamber, and fully prepared to enter into the matter of the 
 letter aitch. 
 
 Madame Sadleir was stout and elderly, she wore an au- 
 burn wig, she was calm and efficient, yet she also had an 
 indefinable quality of style. In spite of a certain genial 
 grotesqueness she had an air of superiority. Henry Har- 
 per, his vibrant sensibilities still astretch from an afternoon
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 of stylists, perceived at once that this was a lady with more 
 or less of a capital letter. 
 
 Experience of Cora and her friends had by this time 
 taught the Sailor that there were "common or garden" 
 ladies, to use a favorite expression of Miss Press, and there 
 were also those he defined as real or Hyde Park ladies. He 
 had little first-hand knowledge, at present, of the latter; he 
 merely watched them from afar and marked their deport- 
 ment in public places. But there was a subtle quality in 
 the greeting of Madame Sadleir, almost a caricature to look 
 at as she was, which suggested the presence of a lady with 
 a capital letter, at least with more or less of a capital letter, 
 a sort of Hyde Park lady relapsed. Henry Harper was 
 aware, almost before Madame Sadleir spoke a word, that 
 she had been born to better things than 12, Portugal Place, 
 W., third floor. 
 
 Completely disarmed by the calm but forthcoming man- 
 ner of Madame Sadleir, Mr. Henry Harper stated his 
 modest need with extreme simplicity. He just wanted to 
 be taught in as few lessons as possible to speak like a real 
 college gentleman that went regular regularly (remember- 
 ing his grammar in time) into Society. 
 
 Madame Sadleir's smile was maternal. 
 
 "Why, certainly," she said in the voice of a dove. "Noth- j 
 ing easier." 
 
 The young man felt reassured. He had not thought, 
 even 'in his moments of optimism, that there would be any- 
 thing easy in the process of making a Mr. Edward Ambrose 
 or a Mr. Esme Horrobin. 
 
 "It will be necessary," said Madame Sadleir, "to pay 
 very particular attention to the course of instruction, and 
 also to practice assiduously. But first you must learn to 
 take breath and to assemble and control the voice. Do you 
 desire the Oxford manner?" 
 
 319
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Mr. Henry Harper, with recollections of Mr. Edward 
 Ambrose and Mr. Esme Horrobin, said modestly that he 
 did desire the Oxford manner if it could be acquired in a 
 few lessons, which was yet more than he dared to hope. 
 
 "The number of lessons depends entirely upon your dili- 
 gence and, may I add" and Madame Sadleir did add 
 "your intelligence and natural aptitude. But, of course, to 
 remove all misunderstanding, the Oxford manner is an 
 extra." 
 
 Somehow he felt that such would be the case. 
 
 "Personally, one doesn't recommend it," said Mudame 
 Sadleir, "for general use." 
 
 Mr. Harper was a little disappointed. 
 
 "It is not quite so popular as it was," said Madame 
 Sadleir, "unless one is going into the Church. In the 
 Church it is always in vogue, in fact one might say a sine 
 qua non in its higher branches. Do you propose to take 
 Orders'?" 
 
 Mr. Harper had no thoughts of a commercial life. 
 
 "Personally," said Madame Sadleir, speaking with the 
 most engaging freedom and ease, "one is inclined to favor 
 a good Service manner for all round general use. There is 
 the A manner for the army subaltern, the B manner for the 
 company officer, either of which you will find admirable for 
 general purposes. There is also the Naval manner, but 
 excellent as it is, I am afraid it is hardly to be recom- 
 mended for social life. The Civil Service manner, which 
 combines utility with a reasonable amount of ornament, 
 might suit you perhaps. I am recommending it quite a good 
 deal just now. And, of course, there is the Diplomatic 
 or Foreign Office manner for advanced pupils, but it may 
 be early days to talk of that at present. One does not like 
 to raise false hopes or to promise more than one can perform. 
 Now, Mr. Harper, kindly let me hear you read this leading 
 320
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 article in the Times on 'What is Wrong with the Nation ?' 
 paying particular attention to the vowel sounds." 
 
 With grave deliberation, Mr. Henry Harper did as he 
 was asked. Having painfully completed his task, Madame 
 Sadleir, in a remarkably benign way, which somehow 
 brought Mr. Herbert Gracious vividly to his mind, pro- 
 ceeded to deal with him with the utmost fidelity. 
 
 Said she : "It is my duty to tell you that for the present 
 a good sound No. 3 Commercial manner is earnestly recom- 
 mended. If you are diligent, it may be possible to graft 
 a modified Oxford upon it, but I am afraid it would be pre- 
 mature to promise even that." 
 
 This was disappointing. But, after all, it was to be fore- 
 seen. Mr. Edward Ambroses and Mr. Esme Horrobins 
 were not made in a day. And when he came to think the 
 matter over at his leisure he was sincerely glad that they 
 were not. It would have taken a mystery and a glamour 
 from the world. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 ABOUT this time, Henry Harper became a member 
 of a society which met once a week at Crosbie's in 
 the Strand. This step was the outcome of a course 
 of lectures he had attended at the London Ethical Insti- 
 tution, in Bloomsbury Square. They had been delivered 
 by the very able Professor Wynne Davies, on that most 
 fascinating of all subjects to the truly imaginative mind, 
 the Idea of God. 
 
 During these lectures, and quite by chance, Henry Har- 
 per had made the acquaintance of a certain Arthur Reeves, 
 a young journalist, who suggested that he should join the 
 Social Debating Society, which met at Crosbie's every Tues- 
 day. This he accordingly did; and being under no obliga- 
 321
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 tion to take an active part in the proceedings until he felt 
 he could do so with reasonable credit, he was able to enjoy 
 them thoroughly. Moreover, he was in full sympathy with 
 Aese alert minds which for the most part were owned by 
 young and struggling men. 
 
 Some of the discussions Henry Harper heard at Crosbie's 
 made a deep impression upon him. All the members seemed 
 to have a turn for speculative inquiry. The majority of 
 those who took an active part in the debates spoke very 
 well. Now and again, it is true, the pride of intellect 
 raised its head. Some of its members were young enough 
 to know everything, but there was also a leaven of older 
 minds which saw life more steadily, and in as rounded a 
 shape as it is possible for the eye of man to perceive it. 
 
 There was one man in particular who attracted Henry 
 Harper. His name was James Thorneycroft, and he was 
 in his way a rare bird, a bank manager with a strong ethical 
 and sociological bias. He was one of the graybeards of 
 the society, a man of sixty, who had the worn look of one 
 who had been fighting devils, more or less unsuccessfully, 
 all his life. For Henry Harper there was fascination and 
 inspiration in James Thorneycroft. His was a mind capa- 
 ble of delving deep into spiritual experience, and of render- 
 ing it in terms which all could understand. 
 
 At the third meeting which Henry Harper attended at 
 Crosbie's, his friend and introducer, Arthur Reeves, under 
 the spell cast by the brilliant Professor Wynne Davies, 
 ventured to combat a certain skepticism in regard to the 
 scope and function of the Deity, which some of the 
 advanced members had put into words at the previous 
 meeting. 
 
 The performance of Arthur Reeves was crude and rather 
 unphilosophical, and yet it was stimulating enough to bring 
 James Thorneycroft on to his legs. 
 322
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "My own view about God is this," he began in that 
 curiously unpremeditated and abrupt way which made an 
 effect of absolute sincerity. "There is a form of inherited 
 belief that will overthrow the most fearless and independent 
 mind if it ventures to disregard it. I suppose most men 
 who think at all are up against this particular problem 
 some time in their lives. But it all comes back to this: it is 
 absolutely impossible for any man to banish the idea of 
 God and continue as a reasoning entity. Of the First Cause 
 we know nothing, of the Ultimate Issue we know even 
 less, but my own faith is that as long as the idea of God 
 persists, Man himself will not perish. I know there are 
 many who will say that science is against me. They will 
 say that there is nothing inherent in the mere idea of 
 God which will or can prevent an earthquake banishing 
 all forms of organic life from this planet in sixty seconds. 
 Well, it is my faith that if that came to pass Man would 
 still persist in some other form. Science would at once 
 rejoin that he would cease to be Man, but to my own psychic 
 experience that is not at all a clear proposition. Science is 
 based upon reason which states as an absolute fact that two 
 and two make four. The idea of God is based upon the 
 fact that two and two plus One make five, and all the sci- 
 ence and all the clear and exact thinking in the world can't 
 alter it. Man is only a reasoning animal up to a point. He 
 has only to keep exclusively to reason to bring about his own 
 defeat. Every thinking mind, I assume, must oscillate at 
 some period of its development between Reason on the one 
 hand (two and two make four) and Experience (twofiand 
 two make five) on the other. Well, if it won't bore you" 
 . . . "Go on, go on!" cried the meeting, not out of polite- 
 ness merely, since all felt the fascination of the unconven- 
 tional and childlike personality of James Thorneycroft. 
 i, . . "I will give you in as few words as I can the experi- 
 323
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 ence that happened to me nearly thirty years ago, which laid 
 at rest all doubts I might ever have had on this point. 
 
 "At that time I was a clerk in a bank at Blackhampton. 
 Employed at the bank was a young porter." . . . 
 
 For a reason he could never explain, a strange thrill 
 suddenly ran through Henry Harper. 
 
 "... And this young chap was one of the best and 
 most promising fellows I ever met. He belonged to the 
 working class, but he was tremendously keen to improve 
 himself. When I met him first he couldn't even read it 
 makes one smile to hear people talk about the good olo* 
 days! but he very soon learned, and then he began to 
 worry things out for himself. I lent him one or two books 
 myself . . . John Stuart Mill, I remember, and that old 
 fool Carlyle, who ruled the roast at that time." Here a 
 bearded gentleman at the back had to be called to order. 
 "Then we both began to get into deeper waters, and with 
 assistance from Germany, soon found ourselves in a flood 
 of isms, although I am bound to say without being able to 
 make very much of them. 
 
 "The time came, however, when this young man, who 
 was really a very fine fellow, took the wrong turning. He 
 somehow got entangled with a woman, a thoroughly bad lot 
 I afterwards found out, a person of a type much below 
 his own. He was an extraordinarily simple chap, he had 
 the heart of a child. From a mistaken, an utterly mistaken 
 sense of chivalry, he finally married her. 
 
 "If ever a man was imposed upon and entrapped it was 
 this poor fellow. Of course he didn't know that at first. 
 But from the hour of his marriage deterioration set in. 
 Ambition and all desire for self-improvement began to go. 
 Then he lost his mental poise, and he became cynical, and 
 no wonder, because that woman made his life a hell. Even 
 when the truth came to him he stuck to her, really I thinlc 
 324
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 out of some quixotic notion he had of reforming her. 
 Certainly he stuck to her long after he ought to have, be- 
 cause slowly but surely she began to drag him down. At 
 last, when the full truth came home to him, he killed her 
 in a sudden fit of madness. 
 
 "Now, there was no real evil in that man. There were 
 one or two soft places in him, no doubt, as there are in 
 most of us, but it is my firm belief that had he married 
 the right woman he would one day have been a credit to 
 his country. He was in every way a very fine fellow in 
 fact, he was too fine a fellow. It was the vein of quixotic 
 chivalry in his nature that undid him. That was the cruel- 
 est part of the whole thing. And I am bound to say that 
 the doubts the higher criticism had put into my mind were 
 very much assisted by the fact that it was this poor chap's 
 real nobility of soul which destroyed him. 
 
 "From the point of view of reason, any man was wrong 
 to marry such a woman, even allowing for the fact that he 
 was ignorant of her real character and vocation when he 
 married her. From the point of view of ethics he was 
 wrong; that is to say, he had not even infringed the code 
 of conventional morality, and was therefore under no obli- 
 gation to do so. And where he was doubly wrong in the 
 sight of reason and ethics, and where, in the sight of the 
 Saviour of mankind, he was so magnificently right, was in 
 sticking to her in the way he did. 
 
 "And yet that man came to the gallows. For years after- 
 wards I could never think of him without a feeling of in- 
 ward rage that almost amounted to blasphemy. But to 
 return to Reason v. Experience, I am merely telling this 
 story for the sake of what I am going to say now. I went 
 to see that poor man in prison after his trial, when he 
 had only one day to live, and I shall never forget the look 
 of him. He was like a saint. He looked into my eyes 
 325
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 and took my hand and he said, and I can hear his words 
 now, 'Mr. Thorncycroft, you can take it from me, there is 
 a God.' 
 
 "I have never forgotten those words. And many times 
 since they were spoken I firmly believe it has only been 
 the words of my poor friend, Henry Harper, spoken on the 
 brink of a shameful grave, which have saved me." The 
 name fell unconsciously from the lips of James Thorney- 
 croft. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 THE Sailor never went again to the meetings of the 
 Social Debating Society at Crosbie's in the Strand. 
 Somehow he had not the courage. The simple un- 
 adorned story of James Thorneycroft had taken complete 
 possession of his mind. 
 
 Without making any researches into the subject, some 
 instinct which transcended reason, which transcended ex- 
 perience itself, told him that the Henry Harper of the story 
 was his own father. Moreover, he was prepared to affirm 
 that it was his own presence in that room unknown as he 
 . was to James Thorneycroft to whom he had never spoken 
 a word in his life which had been responsible for the story's 
 t telling. 
 
 This clear conviction brought no shame to Henry Har- 
 per. No man could have been more amply vindicated in the 
 sight of others than his father had been by him who had 
 given his story with a poignancy which had silenced all criti- 
 cism of the deductions he had ventured to draw from it. 
 The feeling uppermost in the mind of Henry Harper 
 was that one world more had been revealed. At various 
 times in his life he had had intimations of the Unseen. 
 There was something beyond himself with which he had been 
 326
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 in familiar contact. But up till now he had never thought 
 about it much. 
 
 The story he had heard seemed to alter everything. In 
 a subtle way his whole outlook was changed. The fact 
 that his father had died such a death brought with it no 
 sense of ignominy. It was too remote, too far beyond him; 
 besides, the man who had told the story had been careful 
 to show his father's true character. 
 
 It was almost inconceivable that he did not apply the 
 logic of this terrible event to his own case. By now it 
 should have been clear that he was literally treading the 
 same path. Perhaps the voice of reason could not argue 
 with the overwhelming forces which now had Henry Harper 
 in their grip. Once they had driven him into an identical 
 position they forced him to act in a similar way. Just as 
 the father had made the diastrous error of setting himself 
 to reform his wife when he had found out what she was, 
 the son was now preparing to repeat it. 
 
 He determined upon a great effort to win Cora from 
 drink. 
 
 Since the quarrel over the man in the taxi, which had 
 occurred nearly two months ago, they had drifted further 
 apart. Cora had behaved with great unwisdom and she 
 was aware of the fact. But she was not going to risk the 
 loss of the golden eggs if she could possibly help it. She 
 had been shaken more than a little by her own folly, and 
 if Harry had not been a dead-beat fool it must have meant 
 a pretty decisive nail in her coffin. Even as it was, and in 
 spite of the softness for which she despised him, his tone 
 had hardened perceptibly since the incident. Not that she 
 cared very much for that. She did not believe he had it in 
 him to go to extremities. And yet now he had taken this 
 new tone she was not quite sure. Perhaps he was not 
 quite so "soppy" as her friends always declared him to be. 
 327
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Be that as It may, Cora accepted it in good part when 
 Harry took upon himself to beg her earnestly to check her 
 habit of drinking more than she ought. She was even a 
 little touched; she had not expected a solicitude which she 
 knew she didn't deserve. Instead of "telling him off," as 
 she felt she ought to have done, she promised to do her best 
 to meet his wishes. 
 
 He was so grateful that he tried to find a way of help- 
 ing her. He must let her see that he was ready to assist 
 any effort she might make by every means in his power. 
 Therefore, several evenings a week he accompanied her to 
 the Roc and sometimes they went on, as formerly, to a 
 play or a music hall. 
 
 When, after an absence of many months, Henry Harper 
 reappeared in these haunts of fashion, he had to run the 
 gantlet of the girls and the boys. But Cora was secretly 
 gratified to find that he was much better able to take care 
 of himself now. Those months of sequestration, unknown 
 to her, had been a period of very remarkable development. 
 He had been mixing on terms of equality with a class much 
 above hers, he had been enlarging the scope of his observa- 
 tion, he had been deepening his experience. Moreover, he 
 had discovered the letter aitch, and with the help of the 
 indefatigable Madame Sadleir, who was a skillful and con- 
 1 scientious teacher, was now making use of the new knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 Yes, there was a great improvement in Harry. In the 
 opinion of his critics he was much more a man of the world ; 
 callow youths and insipid ladies of the town could no longer 
 "come it over him" in the way that had formerly delighted 
 them. Even Miss Bonser and Miss Press had to use discre- 
 tion. The new knowledge did not make him a prig, but it 
 seemed to give his character an independence and a depth 
 which called for respectful treatment. 
 328
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 He disliked these evenings as much as ever. The Roc and 
 Cora's friends could never have any sort of attraction for 
 Henry Harper. But there was now the sense of duty tg 
 sustain him. He was making a heroic effort to save Cora 
 from herself, yet he sometimes felt in his heart that such 
 a woman was hardly worth the saving. 
 
 The fact was, it was no use disguising it now, she jarred 
 every nerve in his soul. The more he developed the more 
 hopeless she grew. He knew now that she was very com- 
 mon, sordid clay. It was not in her to rise or to respond. 
 She was crass, heavy-witted, coarse-fibered ; his effort had to 
 be made against fearful, and as it seemed with the new 
 perceptions that were coming upon him, ever increasing 
 odds. 
 
 By this he had learned from the new and finer world 
 into which his talent had brought him that Cora had but a 
 thin veneer of spurious refinement after all. He knew 
 enough now to see how hopelessly wrong she was in every- 
 thing, from the heart outwards. It began to hurt him more 
 and more to be in her company in public places. Some- 
 times he could hardly bear to sit at the same table with her, 
 so alien she was from the people he was meeting now on 
 terms approximating to equality. 
 
 Edward Ambrose, realizing how the young man was striv- 
 ing to rise with his fortunes, was doing all that lay in his 
 power to help him. At this time, the name of Mrs. Henry 
 Harper had not been mentioned to him. Several times the 
 Sailor had been at the point of revealing that sinister figure 
 in the background of his life. More than once he had felt 
 that it was the due of this judicious friend that he should 
 know at least of the existence of Cora. But each time 
 Ee had tried to screw his courage to the task a kind of 
 nausea had overwhelmed him. The truth was Edward 
 Ambrose and Cora stood at opposite poles, and when- 
 329
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 ever he tried to speak of her it became impossible to 
 do so. 
 
 Henry Harper had been present at several of the very 
 agreeable bachelor dinner parties in Bury Street, and on 
 (each occasion his host had noted an honorable and increas- 
 ing effort on the part of the neophyte to rise to the meas- 
 'iire of his opportunity. There could be no doubt he was 
 coming on amazingly. The rough edges were being 
 smoothed down and he was always so simple and unaf- 
 fected that it was hardly possible for liberal-minded men 
 \whom fortune had given a place in the stalls at the human 
 'comedy to refrain from liking him. 
 
 "Henry," said his friend when the young man looked in 
 one afternoon in Pall Mall, "what are you doing tomorrow 
 week, Friday, the twenty-third?" 
 
 Henry was doing nothing in particular. 
 
 "Then you must come and dine with me," said Edward 
 Ambrose. 
 
 "I'll be delighted." 
 
 "Wait a minute. That's not the important part. You'll 
 have to take somebody in to dinner. And she's about the 
 nicest girl I know, and she wants very much to meet the 
 author of 'Dick Smith,' and I promised that she should. 
 There will be two or three others . . . Ellis and his fiancee 
 ... I told you Ellis had just got engaged . . . but we 
 shall not be more than ten all told. Will you face it, Henry, 
 just to oblige a friend?" 
 
 A dinner party of ten with ladies was rather a facer for 
 Mr. Henry Harper, in spite of the fact that his social laurels 
 were clustering thicker upon him. 
 
 "I suppose I'll have to if you've promised her," he said 
 with not ungracious reluctance. 
 
 "I'm sure you'll like her as much as she'll like you," said 
 Edward Ambrose. 
 
 330
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 That remains to be seen was the mental reservation in 
 the mind of the Sailor. 
 
 XXV 
 
 FRIDAY week soon came, but very unfortunately it 
 found Cora "in one of her moods." 
 The first intimation she had of the dinner party 
 was the arrival of a parcel of evening clothes, which Harry 
 had purchased that morning in the Strand. As ladies were 
 to be present, his sense of the fitness of things had led him 
 at last to incur this long-promised expense. Indeed, Cora 
 herself had said that sooner or later this would have to be. 
 But now that the clothes had actually arrived and she in- 
 sisted upon being told for what purpose they were required, 
 she flew into a tantrum. 
 
 In Cora's opinion, there had been too much dining al- 
 ready with this Mr. Ambrose, and now that Harry was 
 being invited to meet ladies, had Mr. Ambrose been a true 
 gentleman she would have been invited as well. It did not 
 occur to her that he was not aware of her existence. But 
 in any case Harry ought not to be going to meet other 
 women without his wife. 
 
 Cora became very sulky. And she mingled unamiability 
 with abuse. The sad truth was, and her husband realized 
 it with intense bitterness in the course of that afternoon, 
 she Had begun drinking heavily again in spite of all that 
 he could do to check her. It was a failure of the will. 
 There was no doubt life bored her. The restraints she 
 had recently put upon herself, not in regard to drink alone, 
 had become more than she could bear. For a week past 
 she had known that another "break-out" was imminent. 
 
 She was now inclined to make this dinner party to whicb 
 she was not invited a pretext for it. 
 22 iii
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "I see what it is," she said with ugly eyes. "Your law- 
 ful wife is not good enough for my lord Ambrose and his 
 lady friends." 
 
 This stung, it was so exactly the truth. 
 
 "But don't think for a moment I am going to take it 
 lying down. If you go to this party I'm coming too." 
 
 "You can't," said her husband quietly so quietly that it 
 made her furious. 
 
 "Oh, can't I!" 
 
 "No, you can't," he said with a finality that offered no 
 salve. He was angry with his own weakness. He knew 
 that it had caused him to drift into a false position. And 
 yet what could he do with such a wife as that? 
 
 "You're ashamed of me," she said, with baffled rage in 
 her voice. 
 
 "You've no right to say that." It was a feeble rejoinder, 
 but silence would have been worse. 
 
 "I am going to give you fair warning, Harry. If you go 
 to this party and meet other women while I am left at home, 
 I shall. . . ." 
 
 "You'll what?" he said, recoiling from her heavy breath- 
 ing ugliness. 
 
 "I shall go a good old blind tonight, I warn you." 
 
 She spoke with full knowledge of the effort he had made 
 to help her and all that it had cost him. 
 
 "It won't be half a blind, I'm telling you," she said, read- 
 ing his eyes. "I've done my best for weeks and weeks to 
 please you. I've hardly touched a drop and this is all 
 the thanks I get. I'm flesh and blood like other people." 
 
 She saw with malicious triumph that she had him cor- 
 nered. 
 
 "Look here, Cora," he said, "it's too late to get out of 
 this now. It wouldn't be fair or right for me to break my 
 word to Mr. Ambrose. But I'll promise this. If you will 
 332
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 only keep sober tonight, I'll never go to another party 
 without . . . without your permission." 
 
 "Without my permission!" 
 
 "Without you, then, if that's what you want me to say." 
 
 "Oh, yes! I don't think!" 
 
 "I don't ever break my word," he said simply. "You 
 know that. If I say a thing I try my best to act up to 
 it." 
 
 "Well, it's not good enough for me, anyhow," she said, 
 with a sudden and jealous knowledge of her own inferiority. 
 "If you leave me tonight, so help me God, I'll get absolutely 
 blind." 
 
 She saw the horror in his eyes and was glad. It gave her 
 a sense of power. But it brought its own Nemesis. She 
 forgot just then that he alone stood between her and the 
 gutter. 
 
 "Be reasonable, Cora," he said weakly. There did not 
 seem to be anything else he could say. 
 
 "I've warned you," she said savagely. "Leave me to- 
 night and you'll see. I'll not be made a mark of by no 
 one, not if I know it." 
 
 In great distress he retired to his bedroom in order to 
 think things out. He felt that he was much in the wrong. 
 Somehow he did not seem to be keeping to the terms of 
 the bargain. Up to a point Cora had reason and justice 
 on her side. Yet beyond that point was the duty to his 
 friends. 
 
 In a miserable state of mind he sat on the bed. He was 
 desperately unwilling to undo all the good work of the past 
 six weeks, but it was certain that if he left Cora in her 
 present mood something would happen. Twice he almost 
 made up his mind not to go, but each time he was over- 
 powered by the thought of his friend. It was really impos- 
 sible to leave him in the lurch without a shadow of excuse. 
 333
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 At last, with a sense of acute misery, he came to a de- 
 cision, or rather the swift passage of time forced it upon 
 him. Suddenly he got off the bed, opened the parcel and 
 spread out the new clothes.
 
 BOOK IV 
 
 DISINTEGRATION 
 
 THE process of dressing for Henry Harper's first 
 dinner party was not a very agreeable operation. No 
 man could have undertaken it in a worse state of 
 despair. The new links he had bought could only be per- 
 suaded with difficulty into the cuffs of the boiled shirt; 
 further trouble presented itself with the collar, and finally, 
 when all the major operations were complete, he had to 
 solve the problem of a white tie or a black one. In the end 
 he chose a black one on the ground that it would be more 
 modest, although he was not sure that it was right. 
 
 When at last he was complete in every detail, he returned 
 to the sitting-room where his wife still was. She was smok- 
 ing a cigarette. 
 
 "Cora," he said quietly and politely, "I am only going 
 because I must. I couldn't look Mr. Ambrose in the face 
 if I let him down without a fair excuse. But I'll promise 
 this. I'll never go to another party without you, and I 
 give you my solemn word I wouldn't go now if there was 
 a way out." 
 
 She made no answer. Without looking at him, but with 
 sour rage in her eyes, she threw the end of the cigarette she 
 was smoking into the fire and lit another. 
 
 The young man was rather short of time, and remember- 
 ing a former excursion to Bury Street which was yet quite 
 335
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 easy to find from the top of the Avenue, he took a taxi. 
 Driving in solitary state he was very nervous and strangely 
 uncomfortable. The evening clothes felt horribly new and 
 conspicuous, and they didn't seem to fit anywhere. Then 
 again he knew this was an adventure of the first magnitude. 
 The bachelor parties of two or three intimate friends were 
 on a different plane from an affair of this kind. How- 
 ever, he determined to thrust unworthy fears aside. There 
 could be no doubt he was far better equipped than he had 
 been before Madame Sadleir took him in hand. Besides, 
 when all was said, the feeling uppermost in his mind just 
 now, outweighing even the black thought of Cora, was a 
 sense of exhilaration. Somehow he felt, as his swift ma- 
 chine crossed Piccadilly Circus, in spite of Cora, in spite 
 of new clothes, in spite of bitter inexperience, that for 
 the first time in his life he was entering the golden 
 realm whose every door had been double-locked, thrice- 
 bolted against him by the dark and evil machinations of 
 destiny. 
 
 Even when the taxi stopped before the now familiar por- 
 tals in Bury Street and he had paid the driver his fare, he 
 still had a sense of adventure. And this was heightened by 
 what was going on around him. The magic door was open 
 wide to the night, the august form of Portman, the butler, 
 was framed in it, and at that very moment the Fairy Prin- 
 cess was descending from her chariot. 
 
 How did he know it was she? Some occult faculty 
 mysteriously told him. She was tall and dark and smiling; 
 a bright blue cloak was round her; he saw a white satin 
 slipper. It was She. Beyond a doubt it was the real Hyde 
 Park lady he was going to take in to dinner. 
 
 He hung back by the curb, a whole discreet minute, while 
 Mr. Portman received her. She made some smiling remark 
 that Henry Harper couldn't catch. He could only hear the 
 336
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 beautiful notes of her voice. They were those of a siren, a 
 low deep music. 
 
 The Sailor came to the door just as another chariot glided 
 up. He greeted Portman, his old friend, of whom he was 
 still rather in awe, and doffed his coat and hat in the en- 
 trance hall without flurry, and then went slowly up the 
 stairs where he found that the butler had already preceded 
 him. Moreover, he was just in time to hear him announce: 
 
 "Miss Pridmore." 
 
 The name literally sang through the brain of the Sailor. 
 Where had he heard it? But he had not time then to hunt 
 it down in his memory. 
 
 "Mr. Harper." With a feeling of excitement he heard 
 the rolling, unctuous announcement. 
 
 For a brief instant the vigorous grip and the laughing 
 face of his host put all further speculation to flight. Ed- 
 ward Ambrose was in great heart and looking as only the 
 Edward Ambroses of the world can look at such moments. 
 But he merely gave Henry Harper time to note, with a 
 little stab of dismay, that the tie he had chosen was the 
 wrong color, when he was almost hurled upon Miss Prid- 
 more. 
 
 "This is Mr. Harper, Mary, whom you wanted to meet." 
 And then with that gay note which the Sailor could never 
 sufficiently approve: "I promised him one admirer. He 
 wouldn't have come without." 
 
 Where had he heard that name? The question was surg- 
 ing upon the Sailor as he stood looking at her and waiting 
 for her to speak. A moment ago it had been uttered for the 
 first time, yet it was strangely familiar to him. And that 
 face of clear-cut good sense, with eyes of a fathomless gray, 
 where had he seen it? 
 
 "I should love to have been a sailor." Those were her 
 first words. That voice, where had he heard it? It seemed 
 337
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 to be coming back to him out of the years, out of the meas- 
 ureless Pacific. A Hyde Park lady was speaking in Bury 
 Street, St. James', but at that moment he was not in Lon- 
 don, not in England, not in Europe at all. He was on the 
 high seas aboard the Margaret Carey, he was in his bunk 
 in the half-deck. In one hand he held a sputtering candle) 
 in the other a torn fragment of the Brooklyn Eagle. It 
 was Klondyke who was speaking. The Fairy Princess was 
 speaking with the voice of his immortal friend. 
 
 "I have a brother who has sailed before the mast." 
 
 In a flash he remembered the inscription in Klondyke's 
 Bible : "Jack Pridmore is my name, England is my nation." 
 The mystery was solved. This was Klondyke's sister. 
 There was no mistaking the resemblance of voice, of fea- 
 ture; this was the unforgettable girl he had seen with Klon- 
 dyke in Hyde Park. 
 
 He suddenly remembered that he must say something. 
 It would hardly be proper to stand there all night with his 
 mouth open, yet with not a word coming out of it. 
 
 "I think I know }'our brother," were his first words. 
 They were not the result of deliberate choice. Some new 
 and strange power seemed to have taken complete possession 
 of him. 
 
 "You've met my brother Jack?" 
 
 "Yes. We were aboard the same craft pretty near two' 
 years. We used to call him Klondyke." 
 
 A delightful laugh rang in his ears. 
 
 "What a perfect name for him! I must tell that to my 
 mother. It was because he had been in the Klondyke, 1 
 suppose." 
 
 "Yes, that was it. He had been in the Klondyke. He 
 used to yarn about it on the Margaret Carey. We were 
 both berthed for'ard in the half-deck. His bunk was under 
 
 338
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Isn't it odd that we should meet like this!" 
 
 "Yes, it's queer. But there are many queer things in 
 the world, ain't there? At least I've seen a goodish few 
 and so has Klondyke. But he was a grand chap." 
 
 Mary Pridmore, who felt rather the same about her 
 brother Jack, although he was not a brother to be proud of, 
 but quite the reverse, as the members of his family always 
 made a point of explaining to him whenever they had the 
 chance, was somehow touched by the tone of reverence with 
 which his shipmate spoke of him. 
 
 "He's the black sheep of the family, of course you know 
 that," she said, feeling it necessary to take precautions against 
 this delightful young sailorman who had already intrigued 
 her. 
 
 "He used to say so," said the Sailor, with the simplicity 
 of his kind. "He used to say his mother was fearfully cut up 
 about him. She thought he was a rolling stone and he would 
 never be any good at anything. But you don't think so, 
 Miss Pridmore, do you?" The eyes of the young man 
 delighted her as they looked directly into hers. "No, I can 
 see you don't. You think Klondyke's all right." 
 
 "Why should you think, Mr. Harper, that I think any- 
 thing of the kind?" The voice was rebuking, but the eyes 
 .Were laughing, and it was the eyes that mattered. 
 
 "You can't deny it!" he said with a charming air of de- 
 fiance. "And if I was Klondyke's sister I wouldn't 
 want to." 
 
 "As long as mother never hears anyone speak of him 
 like that it really doesn't matter what we think of him, 
 you know." 
 
 This wonderful creature, who in the sight of the Sailor 
 was perfection from head to heel, whose very voice he could 
 only compare to John Milton whom he had lately discov- 
 ered, let her hand rest on his arm very lightly, yet with a 
 339
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 touch that was almost affectionate. And then they went 
 downstairs to dinner. 
 
 II 
 
 POLITENESS forbade that they should talk all the 
 time to each other during that enchanted meal. Mr. 
 Ellis was at the other side of Miss Pridmore, and 
 an unknown lady of great charm and volubility was at 
 the other side of Mr. Harper. These very agreeable peo- 
 ple had to have a little share of their conversation, but 
 during the major part of a delightful affair, Henry Harper 
 was talking as he had never talked in his life before, not 
 even to Klondyke himself, to Klondyke's sister. 
 
 It was not only about Klondyke that they talked. They 
 had other things in common. Miss Pridmore was a per- 
 fectly sincere, a frankly outspoken admirer of "The Ad- 
 ventures of Dick Smith." She had never read anything like 
 it; moreover she was quite fearless and nobly unquali- 
 fied in her admiration of that fascinating tale of adven- 
 ture, for the most part murderous adventure, on the high 
 seas. 
 
 "We all have great arguments at home," she said, "as to 
 which volume is the best. I say the first. To me those 
 island chapters are incomparable. The Island of San Pedro. 
 I say that's better than 'Robinson Crusoe' itself, which 
 makes Uncle George furious. He considers it sacrilege to 
 say anything of the kind." 
 
 "It is so," said the author with a little quiver of hap* 
 piness. 
 
 "But you are bound to say that, aren't you?" 
 
 "I wouldn't say it if I didn't think it, Miss Pridmore." 
 
 The quaint solemnity delighted her. 
 
 "Uncle George says the Island of San Pedro is an imi- 
 340
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 tation of 'Robinson Crusoe,' but nothing will ever make me 
 admit that, so you had better not admit it either. Please 
 say it isn't, to save my reputation for omniscience." 
 
 "I had not read 'Robinson Crusoe' when I wrote the 
 Island, and I suppose if I had I should have written it 
 differently." 
 
 "It's a very good thing you hadn't. There's nothing like 
 the Island anywhere to my mind. You can see and feel 
 and hear and smell and taste that Island. It is so real that 
 when poor Dick was put ashore by the drunken captain of 
 the brigantine Excelsior I literally daren't go to bed. And 
 my brother Jack says and I always quote this to Uncle 
 George that no more lifelike picture of a windjammer it 
 is a windjammer, isn't it? " 
 
 "That's right." 
 
 "And of an island in the Pacific could possibly be given." 
 
 "Well, I wouldn't quite say that myself," said the sailor- 
 man, with the blood singing in his ears. 
 
 "Of course not. It wouldn't be right for you to say it."" 
 
 "Where is Klondyke now, Miss Pridmore?" he asked 
 suddenly. 
 
 "No one knows. He probably doesn't know himself. 
 The last letter my mother had from him arrived about 
 two months ago. He was then in the middle of Abyssinia. 
 But he has moved since. He never stays long anywhere 
 when the wanderlust is on him. But we don't worry. He'll 
 turn up one of these days quite unexpectedly, looking rather 
 like a tramp, and will settle down to civilization for a short 
 time; and then one morning he'll go off again to the most 
 outlandish place he can think of, and we may not see or hear 
 anything of him for months or even years." 
 
 A dull period followed the dessert. Miss Pridmore and 
 the other ladies went and the Sailor had to remain with 
 four comparatively flat and tame gentlemen who smoked
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 very good cigars and talked of matters which the young man 
 did not feel competent to enter upon. 
 
 It was an irksome twenty minutes, but it had to be 
 endured. And it was not really so very difficult because he 
 was in heaven. 
 
 At last when the four other gentlemen had solemnly 
 smoked their cigars, and he had smoked the mild cigarette 
 which contented him, they went upstairs. And as they did 
 so he felt the hand of Edward Ambrose on his shoulder 
 and he heard a laughing voice in his ear. "Henry, you are 
 going great guns." 
 
 That was quite true. He felt wonderful. There is no 
 doubt people do feel wonderful when they are in heaven. 
 And there was his divinity sitting in the middle of the 
 smaller sofa, and as soon as he entered he was summoned 
 with a gesture of charming imperiousness which the boldest 
 of men would not have dared to disobey. And as he 
 came to her she laughingly made room for him. He sat 
 by her side and fell at once to talking again of Klondyke. 
 From Klondyke, whom she would not admit was quite the 
 hero the author of "Dick Smith" considered him to be, 
 they passed to the High Seas, and then to Literature, and 
 then to the Drama, and then to Life itself, and then to the 
 High Seas again, and then to Edward Ambrose, whom she 
 spoke of with great affection as a very old friend of hers 
 and of her family, and then once more to Life itself. After 
 the flight of a winged hour she rose suddenly and held out 
 her hand. But as she did so she also said one memorable 
 thing. 
 
 "Mr. Harper" her fingers were touching his "promise, 
 please, you will come to tea one afternoon soon. No. 50, 
 Queen Street, Mayfair. I am going to write it on a piece 
 of paper if you will get it for me, so that there will be no 
 mistake." 
 
 342
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 The Sailor got the piece of paper for Miss Pridmore. As 
 he did so the eternal feminine rejoiced at his tall, straight, 
 cleanly handsomeness, in spite of the reach-me-down which 
 clothed it. 
 
 "Now that means no excuse," she said, with a little touch 
 of royal imperiousness returning upon her. "No. 50, Queen 
 Street. One of those little houses on the left. About half 
 past four. Shall we say Wednesday? I want to hear you 
 talk to my mother about Klondyke." 
 
 She gave him her hand again, and then after a number of 
 very cordial and direct good-bys which Klondyke himself 
 could not have bettered, she went downstairs gayly with her 
 host! 
 
 "Tell me, Mary," said Edward Ambrose on the way 
 down, "who in the world is Klondyke?" 
 
 "It's Jack," she said. "They were together on board 
 the brigantine Excelsior although that's not the real name 
 of it." 
 
 "How odd!" said Edward Ambrose. "But what a fellow 
 he is not to have said so. When one remembers how he 
 gloated over the yarn one would have thought " 
 
 "But how should he know? It must have been years 
 ago. Yet the strange thing is he remembers Jack and he 
 knew I was his sister because we are so exactly alike, which 
 I thought very tactless." 
 
 "Naturally. Did you like him?" The question came 
 with very swift directness. 
 
 "He's amazing." The answer was equally swift, equally 
 direct. "He is the only author I have ever met who comes 
 near to being " 
 
 "To being what?" Mary Pridmore had suddenly re- 
 membered that she was being escorted downstairs by a 
 distinguished man of letters. 
 
 "Do you press the question?" 
 343
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Certainly I press the question." 
 
 "Very well, then," said Mary Pridmore. "Wild horses 
 will not make me answer it. But I can only say that your 
 young man is as wonderful as his books. He's coming to 
 tea on Wednesday, and it will be very disappointing if you 
 don't come as well. Good-by, Edward. It's been a splen- 
 did evening." And she waved her hand to him as she 
 sped away with an air of large and heroic enjoyment of 
 the universe, while Edward Ambrose stood rather wistfully 
 at the door watching her recede into the night. 
 
 Ill 
 
 MY friend," said Edward Ambrose, as he helped the 
 last departing guest into his overcoat, "I sup- 
 pose you know you have made a conquest?" 
 
 The Sailor was not aware of the fact. 
 
 "Mary Pridmore is ... well, she is rather . . . she is 
 rather . . ." 
 
 "We talked a lot," said the young man, with a glow in 
 his voice. "I hope she wasn't bored. But as she was Klon- 
 dyke's sister, I couldn't help letting myself go a bit. She's 
 she's just my idea of what a lady ought to be." 
 
 The young man, who was still in heaven, had the grace 
 to blush at such an indiscretion. His host laughed. 
 
 Said he: "Had I realized that you were such a very- 
 dangerous fellow, I don't think you would have been in- 
 vited here tonight. I mean it, Henry." And to show that 
 he didn't mean it in the least, Edward Ambrose gave the 
 Sailor a little affectionate push into Bury Street. 
 
 As the night was fine and time was his own, Henry Har- 
 per returned on foot to King John's Mansions. He did not 
 go by a direct route, but chose Regent Street, Marylebone 
 344
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Road, Euston Road, and other circuitous thoroughfares, so 
 that the journey took about four times as long as it need 
 have done. Midnight had struck already when he came 
 to the top of the Avenue. 
 
 By that time he was no longer in heaven. As a matter 
 of fact, he had fallen out of paradise in Portland Place. 
 It was there he suddenly remembered Cora. For several en- 
 chanted hours he had completely forgotten her. He had 
 been in Elysium, but almost opposite the Queen's Hall he 
 fell out of it. It was there the unwelcome truth came upon 
 him that he had been surrendering himself to madness. 
 
 He clenched his teeth as if he had received a blow in 
 the face. He was like an ill-found ship wrenched from its 
 moorings and cast adrift in mid-ocean. God in heaven, 
 how was he to go home to that unspeakable woman after 
 such a draught of sheer delight! 
 
 For a moment, standing dazed and breathless in the mid- 
 dle of the road, he almost wanted to shriek. He had been 
 drinking champagne, not with undignified freedom, yet for 
 unseasoned temperaments it may be a dangerous beverage 
 even in modest quantities. He had really drunk very little, 
 but he felt that in the situation he had now to face it would 
 have been better to have left it alone. 
 
 How was he going to face Cora now he had seen the peri, 
 now he had looked within the Enchanted Gates? 
 
 There was only one possible answer to the question. And 
 that had come to him as he had crossed, quite unnecessarily, 
 the Marylebone Road, and had fetched up against the rail- 
 ings of Regent's Park. He must accept the issue like a man. 
 Setting his teeth anew, he moved in an easterly direction 
 towards the Euston Road. 
 
 He allowed himself to hope, as he turned the latchkey in 
 the door of No. 106, King John's Mansions, that Cora had 
 not carried out her threat. But he was not able to build 
 345
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 much upon it. As he climbed up slowly towards the roof 
 of the flats there seemed something indescribably squalid 
 about the endless flights of bleak, iron-railed stone stairs. 
 
 When the door of No. 106 opened to his latchkey, the first 
 thing he perceived was a stealthy reek of alcohol. A light 
 was in the passage; and then as he closed the outer door, 
 he caught an oddly unexpected sound of voices coming 
 through the half open door of the sitting-room. He stood 
 and listened tensely. One of the voices was that of a man. 
 
 It was not necessary to enter the sitting-room itself to 
 confirm this fact. A man's hat, one of the sort called a gibus, 
 which he knew was only worn with evening clothes, was 
 hanging on one of the pegs in the passage. An overcoat 
 lined with astrachan was under it. 
 
 He could hear a strange voice coming from the sitting- 
 room. It was that of a man of education, but it had a sort 
 of huskiness which betrayed the familiar presence of alcohol. 
 Involuntarily, he stood to listen at the half open door. 
 
 "Cora, old girl, you are as tight as a tick." After all, the 
 tones were more sober than drunk. "I'll be getting a move 
 on, I think. I'll soon be as bad as you, and then I won't be 
 able to, I expect." 
 
 "Don't go yet, ducky. I am just beginning to like you." 
 It was the voice of Cora the voice of Cora drunk. 
 
 "I will, if you don't mind. That second bottle has been 
 a mistake. And you are not so very amusing, are you?" 
 
 "Speak for yourself." And the voice of Cora subsided into 
 some far and deep oblivion. 
 
 There was a silence. In the midst of it, the young man 
 suddenly entered the room. 
 
 The visitor, who was tall and powerful and well dressed, 
 had the look of a gentleman. Perhaps a gentleman run a 
 little to seed. He was standing on the threadbare hearth- 
 rug, his hands in his pockets, in a rather contemptuous at- 
 346
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 titude, while Cora, unmistakably drunk, had subsided on the 
 sofa. Several bottles with glasses beside them were on the 
 table. 
 
 As Henry Harper entered the room, the man looked at 
 him in utter astonishment. His surprise seemed too great 
 to allow him to speak. 
 
 " 'Ullo, Harry," muttered Cora from her sofa. She did 
 not attempt a more formal or coherent greeting. 
 
 He did not know what to say or how to act. He was 
 wholly taken aback by the man's air of cool surprise; indeed 
 his attitude expressed grim resentment for the intrusion of 
 a third person. 
 
 "Who is this gentleman, Cora?" at last the young man 
 was able to ask. 
 
 "Go to hell," Cora muttered. 
 
 "Yes, go to hell," said the man, apparently grateful for 
 the lead. 
 
 Harper stood nonplused, defeated. But he managed to 
 say, feebly enough as it seemed to himself, "I don't know 
 who you are, sir, but I'll thank you for an explanation." 
 
 The man laughed insolently. "It's the limit," he said. 
 
 At this point, Cora, by an effort verging upon the super- 
 human, sat up on the sofa. 
 
 "Charlie." Her voice was a wheeze. "I want you to 
 set about this beauty to oblige me." 
 
 "My God, I've a good mind to," said Charlie, who as he 
 became more sober seemed to grow more dangerous. "I 
 don't know who you are, my friend, but if you'll take advice 
 you'll clear out." 
 
 As the man spoke, his eyes looked particularly ugly. But 
 among the things the Sailor had learned aboard the Mar- 
 garet Carey was the art of keeping cool in a crisis. 
 
 "You've no right here at all, sir," said the man. "You 
 ought to know that." 
 
 23 347
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "No right!" said Henry Harper, in astonishment. 
 
 "If you are a wise man, you will go away. I was here 
 first." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "I came at the invitation of this lady, Miss Cora Dobbs, 
 who is a very old friend of mine." 
 
 The man turned towards the sofa. Cora nodded. But 
 she was now bordering on a state of coma. 
 
 "Who are you, sir?" Harper tried hard to keep his 
 temper in spite of the man's calculated insolence. "Are you 
 a relation of hers?" 
 
 "A relation!" The man was taken aback. "We are 
 both here for the same object, I presume." 
 
 "I don't know what you mean, but this is my flat and I'll 
 be very thankful if you'll quit." 
 
 "Your flat!" A light seemed to dawn. The man turned 
 to Cora: "Why didn't you tell me? I thought you were 
 on your own, as you w*ere before I went to Canada." 
 
 To the man's clear annoyance, Cora had now reached a 
 phase which forbade her to answer this question. He then 
 addressed Henry Harper with a sudden change of voice. 
 
 "She's not played the game," he said, half apologetically. 
 
 "I don't know what you mean by that. I don't under- 
 stand you." 
 
 The man looked at him in astonishment. He then looked 
 at Cora, who was half lying upon the sofa, mute, fuddled, 
 and indifferent. 
 
 "Come outside," said the man, in a lower tone, "and I'll 
 explain." 
 
 Feeling completely bewildered, Harper accompanied him 
 into the passage. 
 
 "I apologize," said the man, as soon as they got there. 
 "But Cora is entirely to blame. There's no need to say 
 she never told me she was living with you." 
 348
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "I don't understand," said Henry Harper. 
 
 The man stared at him. He was at a loss. 
 
 "Of course, I've known Cora Dobbs for years." He 
 lowered his voice. "But I've been away in Canada. Before 
 I went, I used to come here pretty regularly." 
 
 As the man spoke, light came to Henry Harper. All at 
 once, a chill ran in his veins. 
 
 "But ... but she's . . . she's my wife," he gasped, 
 leaning heavily against the wall of the passage. 
 
 "She's your what!" the man almost shouted. 
 
 "She's my wife." 
 
 Again the man stared at him, but now with a look of 
 consternation and pity. 
 
 "You mean to say you didn't know?" 
 
 The young man, still leaning against the wall, was unable 
 to speak. A glance at the ashen face convinced the older 
 man that there was no need to repeat the question. 
 
 "Well, I'm sorry, and I can only apologize," he said, 
 after a moment's pause, and in a tone of good feeling. He 
 then took his hat and coat from the peg, and suddenly darted 
 out of the flat. The door closed after him with a bang. 
 
 IV 
 
 THE Sailor continued to lean against the wall. An 
 abyss had opened. The look on the face of Mr. 
 Rudge, his late master, and the strange words he 
 had used were returning upon him with awful force. 
 
 With this discovery came surprise, bewilderment, self- 
 disgust. It hardly seemed possible that a man in his senses 
 could be so blind, so ignorant, so gullible. Where had been 
 his wits, that he should have allowed the creature at the 
 other side of the passage wall, and her associates, to dupe 
 him so completely ? 
 
 349
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 A? the feeling of amazement at his own folly deepened, 
 a gust of fury swept through him like a storm. An over- 
 mastering desire came upon him to enter that room, to deal 
 once and for all with this bird of prey. Let the world be 
 rid of a foul thing. Let his be the hand to efface it in its 
 infamy. 
 
 He would go in at once and make an end of her. A surge 
 of inherited forces, a flood of old, unhappy, far-off things 
 were whirling him like a piece of driftwood into the mael- 
 strom. He was in the grip of a terrible pow T er ... a power 
 beyond his control. It was not merely that she had en- 
 trapped him, or that he had been incredibly blind to the 
 drab and sordid world in which she lived; in the light of 
 a widening knowledge, the fact which now drove him to 
 frenzy was that a creature so common and unclean should 
 have found it so easy to make him her victim. 
 
 He did not return to the room at once. There were 
 other forces, it seemed, vibrating in the air around him. 
 There came a sudden reminder from the talisman that he 
 bore continually in the right-hand corner of his brain. He 
 heard a voice. 
 
 "Henry Harper, is she worth it? Remember, if you 
 destroy her, you destroy yourself utterly, body and soul." 
 
 The words sank into him. The issue was joined, and 
 there came the shock of battle. A will half wrenched 
 asunder seemed about to be overthrown. The desire to 
 enter the room was overmastering; a sense of duty was re- 
 inforced by the passion of revenge. There was madness 
 in the thought that he was the dupe of a common woman 
 of the streets. 
 
 Shaken with a fury that was awful, he still leaned against 
 the wall of the passage. The voice of the genie was no 
 longer heard. The talisman shone no more. The old, un- 
 happy, far-off things had overwhelmed them. 
 350
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Kill her, kill her," they whispered savagely. "It is the 
 only thing to do." 
 
 He was half down already. The forces of destiny were 
 crushing out his life. 
 
 "Kill her. Kill her." The very walls were breathing 
 commands in his ears. "It is a duty to others to avenge 
 yourself." 
 
 There was subtlety in the demand. But this was a strong, 
 not a subtle nature. It did not practice self-deception 
 lightly. Aladdin's lamp was quick to reveal the sophist; 
 moreover, it had its own answer ready. Suddenly it 
 flashed before the mind of Henry Harper the elemental 
 figure of the man James Thorneycroft simply relating his 
 story. By a curious trick of the brain, the words of the 
 condemned man were again in his ears. 
 
 "You can take it from me that there is a God." 
 
 He hardly knew what those words meant even as he 
 heard them now. But he knew they had a significance be- 
 yond any which had previously touched his life. Then a 
 miracle happened. The powers which had him in their 
 grip began to relax. It was as if his whole being was 
 translated. He was again his own man. Broken and 
 shattered he was able to stagger to his own room and light 
 the gas. 
 
 The battle was not decided yet. But a new power had 
 come to him. Therefore Henry Harper's first act was to 
 do that which he had never done before in his life. He 
 kneeled by the side of his bed and prayed. 
 
 Presently he rose, and went out again into the little lobby, 
 past the half open door through which could be heard a 
 succession of drunken snores. He snatched his coat and hat 
 from the peg and went hurriedly down into the street. 
 
 It was one o'clock. The Avenue and its environs were 
 almost deserted, save for an occasional policeman and a few 
 351
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 returning revelers. He had no idea as to the way he should 
 go. His one desire was to get as far as he could from 
 King John's Mansions in the shortest possible time. 
 
 Walking about the streets of the city hour after hour, he 
 could not measure the abyss which had engulfed him. He 
 was completely cast away, he had lost track of himself, he 
 didn't know where he was, he had no chart by which to go. 
 
 Ceaseless wandering through remote and unknown places 
 brought the dawn at last, and then he found that the spot 
 he had reached was Camberwell Green. Overcome with 
 fatigue, he sat on a public seat near a tram terminus for a 
 little while. Then he tried to shape his thoughts, but the 
 mind refused to act. 
 
 THE longer he sat the more confused he became. At 
 last it occurred to him that the best thing he could 
 do was to seek the advice of Edward Ambrose. In- 
 deed, in his present state that seemed the only course to 
 take. Almost mechanically, he began to make his way in 
 the direction of Bury Street, St. James'. 
 
 He had a long way to go, and the road was obscure, 
 but as there was not the least need for hurry, he followed 
 the tram lines as far as the Embankment. By the time 
 he had reached Whitehall, it was about eight o'clock. Less 
 than half an hour afterwards he had entered Bury Street, 
 and was back in that house which a few short hours ago 
 had given him his first glimpse of paradise. 
 
 "Why, Henry!" His friend gave a cry of surprise. And 
 then to cover it he said : "You are just in time for break- 
 fast. Another knife and fork, Portman. Take off your 
 overcoat." 
 
 The young man had no wish to do so. He remembered 
 352
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 that his evening clothes were under it. Nor had he any 
 desire for breakfast. 
 
 As soon as the servant had retired, Edward Ambrose 
 compelled him firmly but kindly to eat. 
 
 Ambrose had noted already that the Sailor was in a 
 decidedly overwrought state. The ashen face, the wild eyes, 
 the disheveled appearance was not pleasant to see. 
 
 "Tell me what has happened." 
 
 "Before I do that," said the young man, in a voice un- 
 like his own, "I want you to consider this a secret be- 
 tween us." 
 
 "Yes ... of course." 
 
 "To begin at the beginning of a rotten story." There was 
 a queer break in the voice. "You didn't know that I was 
 married, did you?" 
 
 "No," said Ambrose, impassively. 
 
 "I dare say I ought to have told you. Several times I 
 made up my mind that I would. I am very sorry now 
 I didn't." 
 
 "You were under no obligation to do so." 
 
 "There wouldn't be so much to tell you now if I had," 
 said the Sailor, with horror in his eyes. He then told his 
 story at length, with detail and with difficulty, but conceal- 
 ing nothing. 
 
 Edward Ambrose was much affected. He somehow felt, 
 as a generous mind was likely to feel in such a case, that it 
 should have been his part to shield this lamb from the 
 wolves. Yet he knew that blame did not lie at his door. 
 
 Still, he was deeply grieved. He accepted the story with- 
 out question as it was told him. There could be no doubt 
 that all the essential facts were exactly as they had been 
 related. Harper, in his curious ignorance of the world, had 
 fallen into a trap. 
 
 The young man ended the story with a pathetic appeal 
 353
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 for advice. He made it clear that he could never go back to 
 this woman ; he dared not even venture to see her again lest 
 he do her violence. He must get free of her at all costs. 
 Could his friend tell him how such a thing must be man- 
 aged? 
 
 "One feels it ought not to be very difficult in the circum- 
 stances," said Edward Ambrose, "if we go the right way 
 to work. But the first thing is to consult a lawyer." 
 
 Accordingly, before he had finished a greatly interrupted 
 meal, Ambrose went to the telephone and arranged to 
 see his own solicitor as soon as that gentleman should 
 arrive at his office in Spring Gardens. When he returned 
 to the dining-room, he found Henry Harper striding 
 up and down it. A sort of determined rage had taken 
 possession of him. The hereditary forces that had so 
 nearly overthrown him a few hours before had returned 
 upon him. 
 
 "I'll never be so near murder as I was between twelve 
 and one last night," he said, huskily, with a clenched and 
 deadly look. 
 
 "She wouldn't have been worth it," said Edward Am- 
 brose. He then turned abruptly from the subject. "You 
 will want rooms, won't you somewhere to go?" He had 
 a fund of very practical kindness. "And you'll want clothes. 
 And your papers and books. But I think we had better 
 send one of Mortimer's clerks to collect those. As for 
 rooms, perhaps Portman may know of some." 
 
 Upon due interrogation, Portman, it seemed, knew of 
 some rooms that might be vacant. Thereupon he was sent 
 on a diplomatic mission; the scale of charges must be 
 strictly moderate. He must not show his nose, which prided 
 itself on a resemblance to that of a certain very eminent 
 statesman, in Bury Street again until his errand had been 
 carried out successfully. 
 
 354
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Presently, the solicitors, Messrs. Mortimer, Groves, 
 Pearce, Son and Mortimer, rang up to say that Mr. Daniel 
 Mortimer had arrived at the office, and would be glad to 
 see Mr. Ambrose. Accordingly, Henry Harper went at 
 once with his friend in a taxi to Spring Gardens. 
 
 Mr. Daniel Mortimer was the kind of man who would 
 have greatly impressed the Sailor on an ord'nary occasion. 
 Mr. Mortimer was by nature very impressive. He could 
 not help being so. Even when he was quite alone and merely 
 warming his hands at the fire, he was impressive. In fact, 
 it was a quality which was worth several thousands a year 
 to him. 
 
 Mr. Mortimer had the reputation of being a very sound 
 lawyer. He certainly looked a very sound lawyer. His 
 geniality was most engaging, and there was a shrewd and 
 knowledgeable personality beneath. 
 
 He greeted Mr. Ambrose less as a client than as a rather 
 irresponsible nephew received by a preternaturally wise yet 
 jovial uncle. Ambrose had been his fag at school. 
 
 "Well, Edward, what can we do for you?" was the 
 pontifical greeting. 
 
 "Allow me to introduce Mr. Harper Mr. Mortimer 
 and you can prepare to speak out of the depths of your wis- 
 dom after the ancient manner." 
 
 "Certainly," said Mr. Mortimer, with the air of one 
 very well able to do so. "Won't you sit down?" He placed 
 two chairs with innate and almost oriental magnificence. 
 "We aie now at your service." It was less a trick of speech 
 than sheer pressure of human character which caused Mr. 
 Mortimer always to refer to himself in die plural. 
 
 "I think you had better tell the story, Henry," said 
 Edward Ambrose. "Tell it to Mortimer exactly as you 
 have told it to me." 
 
 That gentleman assumed his armchair of state, and for 
 355
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 the second time that morning Henry Harper told his strange 
 story. 
 
 "And you never guessed!" was the solicitor's brief com- 
 ment when it had been told. 
 
 "I can't think why I didn't," said the young man. 
 
 Mr. Mortimer frowned tremendously. He then took up a 
 pencil and began with great freedom of style to draw on 
 his blotting pad a portrait of no one in particular. 
 
 "Edward," he said, after he had continued to do this 
 for several minutes, "I am afraid this is a difficult business." 
 
 "I am afraid so," said Edward Ambrose gravely. "And 
 we have come to a very wise man to set it right for us. It 
 oughtn't to be beyond your powers, ought it, having regard 
 to the acknowledged character of the lady?" 
 
 "I fear," said Mr. Mortimer, "the character of the lady 
 is too much acknowledged if the question of a divorce is 
 running in 5 : our mind." 
 
 "Well, of course it is," said Edward Ambrose, with an 
 air of deep disappointment as he looked at Henry Harper. 
 
 "I'll have a divorce if I can possibly get one," said the 
 young man. "And I don't care what trouble I take or whaf 
 it costs." 
 
 Mr. Mortimer continued to draw very spirited pictures on 
 his blotting pad. 
 
 "Don't you advise it?" asked Edw r ard Ambrose. 
 
 "Yes, I do, if we can get one. But in the special circum- 
 stances, it is going to prove uncommonly difficult, in fact, 
 one might say impossible." 
 
 "You don't mean that, sir," said Henry Harper. 
 
 "It is only my opinion." Mr. Mortimer spoke as if there 
 could be no other. "But let me be quite candid, as I am sure 
 you want me to be. I am perfectly certain you will never 
 get a British jury to believe the first part of your story." 
 
 "But you believe it?" said Henry Harper, with wild eyes. 
 356
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "I most certainly believe it, I believe every word you tell, 
 me. But we have to deal with a British jury, and in any 
 question affecting what it calls 'morality,' a British jury is a 
 very difficult proposition. At least, that's my experience." 
 
 Both Henry Harper and his friend were so dismayed by 
 the force of Mr. Mortimer's conviction, that at first they 
 did not say anything. Soon, however, Edward Ambrose, 
 who was looking particularly unhappy, remarked : "Then 
 you don't advise him to fight it?" 
 
 "I don't. I am sorry to say I don't. There is not a 
 dog's chance without very strong direction from the Bench, 
 and there is little hope of that in a case of this kind. His 
 Majesty's judges are quite as bad as a British jury when 
 they are out on the 'morality' racket." 
 
 "The good bourgeois, in fact, without a spark of im- 
 agination ?" 
 
 "Quite so. Of course, we might try, but really one doesn't 
 advise it. There would be unwarrantable expense, and 
 even if we were lucky enough to get a verdict, it would still 
 be a very serious matter for a young and rising man. At 
 least, that's my view." 
 
 "I don't doubt you are right," said Edward Ambrose, 
 with a groan of sheer vexation. 
 
 "You mean, sir, I can't get free of her?" said the Sailor. 
 
 "Only with great difficulty, I am afraid. And in any 
 event, the issue is uncertain. As I understand, you are in a 
 position to prove very little. Conjecture will not satisfy a 
 jury, and even that must be based on a set of circumstances 
 that will not help your case." 
 
 "Well, what do you advise?" asked Edward Ambrose. 
 
 "I should be inclined to let matters take their course for 
 the present. As she appears to be drinking heavily, it is 
 not unreasonable to hope that in time things may adjust 
 themselves automatically." 
 
 357
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "But in the meantime how can she be kept from making 
 herself objectionable?" 
 
 "If you care to leave that to us, I think a way may be 
 found." 
 
 "By paying her a sum weekly?" suggested Edward Am- 
 brose. "And by threatening to withdraw it if she doesn't 
 behave herself?" 
 
 "I don't think it will be necessary to do that." 
 
 However, the young man felt it to be his duty to keep 
 her from the gutter, which seemed to be her present desti- 
 nation. 
 
 "That is for you to consider," said Mr. Mortimer. "In 
 my judgment, you are under no obligation to provide for 
 her, but if on grounds of humanity you wish to do so, let 
 no one dissuade you." 
 
 Edward Ambrose agreed. 
 
 The upshot of a painful matter was that it was left in 
 Mr. Mortimer's hands. He undertook to deal in such a 
 way with Mrs. Henry Harper that there should be no fear 
 of molestation from her. Also, he would have inquiries 
 made into her past history and her present mode of life; 
 and if a subsequent reconsideration of the case should make 
 a final appeal to the law seem in any wise expedient, then 
 would be the time to invoke it. In the meantime a sum 
 would be paid to her weekly. Mr. Mortimer undertook to 
 send a clerk to the flat in order to collect Henry Harper's 
 papers and other belongings. 
 
 It was an unhappy state of affairs, but the young man 
 realized that for the present it would be the part of wisdom 
 to leave the matter in the prudent hands of Mr. Mortimer. 
 
 358
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 VI 
 
 THE Sailor found sanctuary at Bury Street until late 
 in the afternoon. By that time a member of Mr. 
 Mortimer's staff had retrieved his chattels from 
 King John's Mansions; also the admirable Portman had 
 returned from his quest "for lodgings, clean and decent, for 
 a single man." Moreover, success had crowned it, as Ed- 
 ward Ambrose had been confident that it would. 
 
 Portman, it appeared, had found very nice rooms for a 
 single gentleman in Brinkworth Street, Chelsea. They were 
 kept by a friend of his who had been butler in the service 
 of the 'Honorable Lady Price, relict of the late Sir O'Gor- 
 man Price, K.C.M.G., a former governor of the Bower- 
 man Islands, who had given him an excellent character. 
 It was also fortified by the fact that he had married the 
 cook lately in the service of that lady. Portman was sure 
 that Mr. Harper would find everything very comfortable. 
 
 Half an hour later, Henry Harper was on his way to 
 Brinkworth Street with his few belongings. Before taking 
 leave of Portman, he presented him with half a sovereign. 
 This was a princely emolument in the eyes of the Sailor, 
 but he felt that nothing less could meet the case. 
 
 On his arrival at Brinkworth Street, the young man knew 
 at once that he would be in good hands. The air of re- 
 spectability which hovered round his rooms was a little por- 
 tentous, perhaps, but at least it was in welcome and vivid 
 contrast to the cheap and dismal tawdriness of King John's 
 Mansions. Mr. Emerson Paley, the proprietor of No. 14, 
 and Mrs. Paley also, had something of Portman's impres- 
 siveness. It was clear that they had their own standard of 
 taste and conduct. Moreover, Henry Harper welcomed it. 
 To him it meant a fixing of social values. The atmosphere 
 359
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 of No. 14, Brinkworth Street, was wholly different from that 
 which had enveloped any home he had ever known before. 
 
 The Sailor found a stimulus in these new surroundings. 
 Brinkworth Street, its outlook and its ideals, was a cosmos 
 he had yet to traverse and explore. Mr. Paley was in his 
 own way surprisingly a gentleman, as Mrs. Paley in hers 
 was surprisingly a lady; not, of course, in the way that 
 Edward Ambrose and his new friend, Mary Pridmore, were, 
 but still they undoubtedly stood for something a curious, 
 indefinable something wholly beyond the menage he had 
 lately left, with its air of make-believe refinement which 
 was not refinement at all. 
 
 Mr. Paley and also Mrs. Paley treated him with great 
 consideration. And it was no second-hand or spurious emo- 
 tion. It seemed to be their nature to pay respect, they 
 seemed to have a craving to pay it, just as a person there was 
 no need to name and that person's friends had a craving 
 to be always what they called "pulling your leg." Not 
 only was Mr. Harper treated with deference, but solid 
 comfort, well cooked food and punctual attention were 
 lavished upon him, so that for his own part he was bound 
 to honor the source whence these blessings sprang. The 
 august shade of the relict of Sir O'Gorman Price, K.C. 
 M.G., might have been a little too much in evidence now 
 and again for the plain and unvarnished taste of a sailor, 
 but an ever deepening perception showed him that the very 
 things he was inclined to despise and to laugh at as most 
 of the people with whom his life had been passed would 
 undoubtedly have done were of real importance if you 
 were able to look at them from the right point of view. 
 
 From the moment he invaded its rather oppressively re- 
 spectable precincts, No. 14, Brinkworth Street, by some 
 alchemy of the spirit of place, began to work sensibly upon 
 the Sailor. A rapidly expanding life had been in peril of 
 3 6o
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 being torn asunder, but Providence, which owed him so 
 much, had found him a harbor of refuge. 
 
 From the very first evening in his new quarters recon- 
 struction began. An air of ordered calm seemed to pervade 
 the carefully laundered pillow as he laid his head on it that 
 night. He was miserably weary, for one thing, but his physi- 
 cal state was not alone the cause of his sleeping in a way 
 that had not been possible at No. 106, King John's Man- 
 sions, in all the months he had known it. Somehow, that 
 sleep in those clean sheets, in that well-aired room, seemed 
 to be the prelude to a new phase of being. 
 
 It was Sunday morning when the Sailor awoke. The 
 first thing he knew was that the noiseless Mr. Paley was 
 in the room, that he had placed a tiny tray on a small table 
 at the side of his bed, that he had said, in his discreet voice, 
 "Eight o'clock, sir," and that he was now in the act of 
 drawing up the blinds and letting in the light of February. 
 
 "Do you desire a warm bath or a cold, sir?" 
 
 It might have been Portman himself who was asking that 
 considered question. 
 
 "Cold, please," said the Sailor, rubbing his eyes with 
 a feeling of pleasure. 
 
 Mr. Paley spread a mat and then produced from a chastely 
 curtained recess a large, yellow-painted bath. Shortly 
 afterwards, he evolved two cans of water from outside the 
 bedroom door. 
 
 "Your bath is quite ready, sir." 
 
 "Thank you. Much obliged." 
 
 The Sailor sprang out of bed. Yes, it was another new 
 world he had entered. 
 
 Half an hour later, he had descended to the dining-room, 
 
 feeling perhaps a stronger and more composed man than he 
 
 had ever been in his life. A well cooked rasher and two 
 
 poached eggs and crisp toast and butter and the best Oxford 
 
 36l
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 marmalade awaited him. He sat near the pleasant fire, with 
 his back to the enlarged photograph of the late Sir O'Gor- 
 man Price, K.C.M.G., the last portrait taken by Messrs. 
 Barrett and Filmer, of Regent Street, and at Brighton, be- 
 fore the country and the empire endured its irreparable loss. 
 He ate steadily for twenty minutes by the marble and ormulu 
 clock in the center of the chimney piece, presented by the 
 Honorable Lady Price (a daughter of Lord Vesle and 
 Voile) in recognition of the faithful and valued service of 
 Miss Martha Handcock, on the occasion of her marriage 
 with Mr. Emerson Paley. He also contrived to hold a 
 brief conversation with Mr. Emerson Paley in regard to 
 the weather. In a word, the Sailor's first breakfast in 
 Brinkworth Street was a memorable affair. 
 
 After his meal, beginning to feel more and more his own 
 man, and with this new world of order, of respect for es- 
 tablished things, unfolding itself around him, he proceeded 
 to unpack the books which the surprisingly efficient member 
 of Messrs. Mortimer's staff had collected in three large 
 parcels. He felt a little thrill of delight as he laid out care- 
 fully each beloved volume on the well polished writing table 
 with its green baize top, and then arranged them with pre- 
 cision and delicacy on a row of empty shelves that had been 
 freshly papered to receive them. 
 
 When this had been done and the litter had been care- 
 fully removed, the Sailor chose the volume which had had 
 the most to say to him of late. In fact, it was the book 
 which up till now had meant more to him than any other. 
 Then he sat luxuriously before the fire, bravely determined 
 to forget the world he had left and to envisage the ne\v 
 one opening around him. 
 
 Two hours passed, whose golden flight it was not for him 
 to heed, when all at once he was brought to earth. 
 
 "Mr. Ambrose," announced Mr. Paley. 
 362
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "I thought I'd like to see if you had moved in in good 
 shape," said his friend, as he entered briskly and cheer- 
 fully. "Sorry I couldn't come with you last night, but I 
 should have been hopelessly late for a very dull dinner party, 
 which might have made it longer for others. What are you 
 reading? Milton?" 
 
 "It simply takes my head off," said the Sailor. "I almost 
 want to shout and sing. It's another new world to me." 
 
 "We can all envy any man who enters it," said Edward 
 Ambrose, with his deep laugh. 
 
 VII 
 
 THREE days later, at the punctual hour of half past 
 four in the afternoon, Mr. Henry Harper was at 
 the threshold of No. 50, Queen Street, Mayfair. 
 He had been at pains to array himself as well as a limited 
 wardrobe allowed, which meant that neatness had been set 
 above fashion. In spite of all he had been through since his 
 glimpse of paradise, the coming of this present hour had 
 been a beacon in his mind. And now as he stood on the 
 doorstep of No. 50, waiting for his echoing summons to be 
 heeded, he felt so nervous that he could hardly breathe. 
 
 The magic portals of the Fairy Princess were drawn back 
 by another Mr. Portman, a bland and spreading gentleman 
 who bore himself with the same authentic air of chaste 
 magnificence. He took charge of Mr. Harper's coat and hat 
 and then took charge of Mr. Harper himself as though he 
 had clearly expected him. As the j'oung man followed him 
 upstairs to the drawing-room his heart beat with a violence 
 wholly absurd. 
 
 Mary came forward to greet him as soon as he appeared 
 in the room, her eyes alight, her hand outstretched. It was 
 a reception of pure unstudied friendship. 
 24 363
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 There was only one other person in the large room just 
 then, a lady of quiet, slightly formidable dignity, who was 
 enthroned before a massive silver tea service on a massive 
 silver tray. 
 
 "Mr. Harper my mother," said Mary. 
 
 The young man took the offered hand timidly. The lady 
 of the silver tea service, kindly and smiling though she was, 
 had none of the impulsive accessibility of her daughter. The 
 Sailor knew in a moment that she belonged to another order 
 of things altogether. 
 
 She was large and handsome, sixty, perhaps, and her 
 finely modeled face was framed in an aureole of extremely 
 correct white hair. Indeed, in spite of her smile and an 
 air of genuine kindness, correctness seemed to be her pre- 
 dominant feature. Everything about her was so ordered, so 
 exactly right, that she had the rather formal unimaginative 
 look to which the whole race of royalties is doomed by the 
 walls of the Royal Academy of Arts. 
 
 It is not certain that Lady Pridmore felt this to be a 
 hardship. Mary roundly declared that nothing would have 
 induced her mother to part with it. She had often been 
 mistaken for this or that personage, and although much 
 teased on the subject by her daughters, it was an open secret 
 that such resemblances were precious in her sight. 
 
 To this lady's "How do you do?" Mr. Harper responded 
 with incoherency. But the watchful Mary, who knew "the 
 effect that mother had on some people," promptly came to 
 the young man's aid and helped him out with great gallantry 
 and success. 
 
 With the laugh peculiarly hers, Mary fixed the sailorman 
 in a chair at a strategic distance from her mother, gave 
 him a cup of tea and a liberal piece of cake, also thought- 
 fully provided him with a plate and a small table to put 
 it on, because this creature of swift intuitions somehow 
 364
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 felt that he had not quite got his drawing-room legs at 
 present. 
 
 "You have a whole volume of questions to answer pres- 
 ently, Mr. Harper," said Mary, "so take plenty of nourish- 
 ment, please. One of the pink is recommended. They've 
 got maraschino." She took one herself and bit it in half with 
 a gusto that rather amazed the young man ; somehow he had 
 not looked for it in a real Hyde Park lady. 
 
 "Mmm I told you mmm Klondyke." The real Hyde 
 Park lady was speaking with her mouth full. "Klondyke 
 is the black sheep of the family. My mother is simply dying 
 to talk to you about him." 
 
 This was not strictly true. Lady Pridmore was not of the 
 kind that simply dies to talk of anything to anybody. Be- 
 fore she married Sir John, she had been a Miss Colthurst, of 
 Suffolk. At the time of her union with that gentleman, then 
 plain Mr. Pridmore, charge d'affaires at Porocatepetl, and 
 afterwards Her Britannic Majesty's representative in several 
 European capitals, her standard of conduct had been rigidly 
 fixed. She had seen much of life since, but nothing had 
 ever caused her to modify it. She was greatly interested in 
 the perennial subject of her eldest son, but to her mind, as 
 it would have been to the collective mind of the Colthursts 
 of Suffolk from immemorial time, it was merely an abuse 
 of language for Mary to state that she was simply dying 
 to hear about Klondyke. She was always much interested, 
 nevertheless, in the doings of poor dear Jack. 
 
 However, a disappointment was in store for Lady Prid- 
 more. This rather strange looking young man with the shy 
 and embarrassed manner was not so communicative on the 
 subject in conversation with her as he had been when 
 Mary had met him at dinner. He had really very little 
 to tell her. For one thing, it was by no means so easy 
 to converse with her as it had been with the altogether 
 365
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 delightful daughter who knew exactly when and how to 
 lend a hand. 
 
 The mother of Klondyke had therefore to do most of the 
 talking about that unsatisfactory young man. She certainly 
 did it very well. That is to say, she talked about him in a 
 very even, precise, persistent, Hyde-Park-lady tone. And the 
 Sailor, as he sat listening with awe to a conversation in which 
 he did not feel in the least able to bear a part, could only 
 marvel that Klondyke had had such a mother as Lady 
 Pridmore and that Lady Pridmore had had such a son as 
 Klondyke. 
 
 It had always been Lady Pridmore's wish that her eldest 
 son should enter his father's profession. In the first place, 
 he would have had Influence to help him, and if there was 
 anything more precious in the sight of Lady Pridmore than 
 Influence, it would have been very hard to discover it. 
 Again, he was the offspring of two diplomatic families; at 
 least, it was recorded in Burke, where each family's record 
 was set out at considerable length and no doubt with rea- 
 sonable veracity, that diplomacy was one of the callings 
 which adorned two supremely honorable escutcheons. 
 
 In the opinion of Mary, also in that of Silvia, who ought 
 to have been back from Mudie's by now, and also, but in a 
 less degree, in the opinion of Otto named after his god- 
 father, a certain Prince Otto von Bismarck who generally 
 got home from the Foreign Office about five, their mother 
 exaggerated the importance of the Pridmores of Yorkshire 
 and the Colthursts of Suffolk. No doubt they were two 
 fairly old and respectable families; Burke could certainly 
 show cause for setting store by them; each family ran to 
 two full pages, fairly bristling with peers and baronets and 
 Lady Charlottes and Lady Sophias; and yet, to their 
 mother's grief, these three heretics, Mary, Silvia, and Otto, 
 generally known as the Prince, took pleasure in developing 
 366
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 the theory that it was mere Victorianism for Burke or any- 
 one else to flaunt such a pride in the Colthursts and the 
 Pridmores. 
 
 "Because," said Mary, "it is not as though either 
 family has ever produced anybody at all first-rate in any- 
 thing." 
 
 The intrusion of Burke reveals a certain attitude of mind 
 in Lady Pridmore. It was really surprising three of her 
 progeny always maintained it, and a fourth would undoubt- 
 edly have done so had he ever felt called upon to express an 
 opinion in the matter that one who had seen as much of the 
 world as their mother, who had dined and supped and danced 
 and paid calls in the most famous European capitals, who 
 had been intimate with Crowned Heads, who had been 
 whirled by them across ballrooms, who had the entree to 
 the great world and had cut a very decent figure in it, ac- 
 cording to the memoirs of the time, should have such obso- 
 lete ideas in regard to the value of the Colthurst family 
 of Suffolk and in slightly modified degree of the Pridmore 
 family of Yorkshire. As Mary said, it was funny. 
 
 At present, however, Mr. Henry Harper did not share 
 any such view of Lady Pridmore. She and all that went 
 with her seemed too important to be contemplated in the 
 light of levity. She had a dignity beyond anything the 
 Sailor had known or up till then had conceived to be pos- 
 sible. Therefore, it made her relationship to Klondyke 
 a crowning wonder. 
 
 "I shall always think, Mr. Harper," said Lady Prid- 
 more, "that if they had only given Jack his Eleven during his 
 last term at Eton, it would have made a great difference in 
 his life. I don't say he ought to have played against Har- 
 row, but I certainly think they might have played him against 
 Winchester for his bowling. Had they done that, I am con- 
 vinced it would have steadied him, and then, no doubt, he 
 367
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 would have settled down and have followed in the foot- 
 steps of his father." 
 
 This was the tragedy of Lady Pridmore's life, yet it said 
 much for the callousness of youth that Mary, Silvia, and the 
 Prince were unable to approach the subject with reverence. 
 
 The Sailor kept up his end as well as he could, but his 
 awe of Lady Pridmore did not grow less. Therefore he 
 could do himself no sort of justice. Mary, who had taken 
 him completely under her wing, was always on the watch to 
 render well-timed assistance. She helped him out of one or 
 two tight places, and then Silvia came in, with three books 
 in a strap. 
 
 She was of a type different from Mary's, but Mr. Harper 
 thought she was very good to look at. She had the same air 
 of directness that he liked so much in the elder sister. An 
 amused vivacity made her popular with most people, yet 
 behind it was a cool, rather cynical perception of men and 
 things. 
 
 Mary introduced Mr. Harper, and Silvia shook hands 
 with him in her mother's manner, but with an eye of merri- 
 ment which made quite a comic effect. 
 
 "I've just come from Mudie's," she said, "where they 
 say everybody is reading your book. It is wonderfully clever 
 of you to have written it. Sailors don't write as a rule, 
 do they? Something better to do, I suppose." 
 
 "I don't know about that," said Henry Harper. Some- 
 how he felt already that Silvia was disarmingly easy to get on 
 with. "Myself, I'd rather be John Milton than the master 
 of any ship that ever sailed the seas." 
 
 "Yes, but that's because you were a sailor before you were 
 a writer, isn't it?" 
 
 "It's what every writer that's worth his salt has got to 
 be," said the young man, quaintly. "John Milton was a 
 sailor, too. A master mariner." 
 368
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Yes, of course," said Silvia. "I see what you mean." 
 
 She had decided already that she very much liked this 
 strange, wistful, rather fine-drawn young man. He was 
 quite different from any other young man she had ever met. 
 Somehow, he was exactly like his book. 
 
 "It is odd you should have been on the same ship as my 
 brother." 
 
 "Yes," said the Sailor. "And yet it isn't. Nothing is 
 really queer if you come to think about it. It seems very 
 much more strange to me that I should be in this beautiful 
 room talking to you ladies, than that I should have been in 
 the port watch with Klondyke aboard the Margaret Carey." 
 
 "The sea is more familiar to you than London," said 
 Silvia, completely disarmed by his naivete, as Mary had 
 been. 
 
 Otto now came in. His general aspect was not unlike 
 Klondyke's, his air was frank and manly, yet his bearing was 
 more considered than that hero's. All the same he had a 
 full share of the family charm. 
 
 "Otto," said Mary, "this is Mr. Harper, who knows 
 Jack." 
 
 "What, you know old Fly-up-the-Creek ! Heaven help 
 you!" 
 
 Mr. Harper had already made the discovery that these 
 people had a language of their own, which he could only 
 follow with difficulty. It was a language which Madame 
 Sadleir didn't teach, a language that Mr. Ambrose didn't 
 use, although he understood it well enough; in fact, it was 
 a language he had never heard before, and he somehow felt 
 that Lady Pridmore was rather pained by it. 
 
 "Mr. Harper," said Mary, "this is our respectable brother. 
 He is true to type." 
 
 "For the love of heaven, be quiet!" said Otto, gulping 
 Ins tea. 
 
 369
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Here's your book on Nietzsche," said Silvia. "Mr. 
 Harper, what do you think of Nietzsche?" 
 
 Mr. Harper had never heard of Nietzsche, and he didn't 
 hesitate to say so. Lady Pridmore alone, of the four people 
 present, failed to respect his frankness. To her mind, it was 
 inconceivable that an author by profession and one reputed 
 to be successful should not have heard of Nietzsche. It was 
 almost as if he had not heard of Lord Tennyson. 
 
 Yet Mary and Silvia and even the Prince honored this 
 candor. This chap was a queer freak in the eyes of the bud- 
 ding diplomatist, but he had been told by people who 
 knew about such matters that all writing chaps were, if they 
 were at all first rate. All the same, he liked him. One felt 
 he was straight and decent, in spite of his outlandishness. 
 Somehow this quaint bird did not seem to be following the 
 usual line of country of the soaring eagles of the moment 
 whom his sisters brought to the house from time to time. 
 
 The Prince took not unkindly to the sailorman, who had 
 written two very curious books about the sea. They were 
 much overrated, in the Prince's opinion. The style was 
 uncertain, and the colors were laid on too thick for any- 
 thing, but people who knew Ted Ambrose, for instance, 
 thought a good deal of them. Personally, the Prince be- 
 lieved in style. Stevenson, for example, wrote like an edu- 
 cated man. This man's writing in its crude force had some- 
 how the air of the lower deck. Ambrose said there was 
 greatness in it, all the same. Personally, the Prince pre- 
 ferred polished mediocrity, and was not ashamed of the fact, 
 not that one could call a chap like Stevenson mediocre. But 
 this man Harper lacked something, although it was to his 
 credit to admit that he had never heard of Nietzsche. But 
 obviously he hadn't. 
 
 370
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 VIII 
 
 MARY'S enthusiasm for the sailorman was shared by 
 Silvia, although not perhaps in an equal degree. 
 Lady Pridmore was inclined to be a little distressed 
 by it, in the way that she was inclined to be a little distressed 
 by so many things. The Prince merely thought there was 
 no harm in the chap, but that he was a freak. 
 
 Edward Ambrose, who had discovered what Lady Prid- 
 more considered this rather odd young man, had many ques- 
 tions to answer when next he appeared in Queen Street. 
 As a particular friend of the house, he turned the tables 
 by adroitly chaffing Lady Pridmore and the Prince, and by 
 ministering gaily to Mary's and Silvia's tempered ecstasies. 
 
 In the meantime, the Sailor was indulging little private 
 ecstasies of his own. The visit to a Mayfair drawing-room 
 had marked one more epoch in a strange career. He had 
 entered another new and wonderful world. It was a world 
 whose language was a closed book to him at present. Per- 
 haps it always would be; at any rate, it seemed to lie out of 
 the range even of Madame Sadleir, whose instruction he still 
 courted diligently. 
 
 It was a world of peculiar grace, of external harmony 
 and beauty. The trained minds marching with the trained 
 movements of these people lent the quality of poetry to all 
 they said and did. And they took what he could only call 
 their refinement so much for granted, that they seemed almost- 
 to apologize for the sheer niceness in which they had so 
 completely enveloped themselves. He had not known that 
 such people existed in mass and bulk, at least that they 
 had a corporate life of their own. The glamour they had 
 for him was extraordinary. It would have been impossible 
 to think without a thrill of his friend Miss Pridmore, even 
 if she had not been the sister of the immortal Klondyke.
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Mary herself found so much in common with the Sailor 
 that she began to show him the sights of the town. She 
 was quite a modern girl in her breadth and independence, 
 happily inoculated against every sort of ism, but at the same 
 time capable of following any line she marked out for her- 
 self. The Sailor had soon begun to interest her very much, 
 and instinctively divining something of his handicap, she 
 washed to help him all she could. 
 
 About a week after the first visit to Queen Street, she led 
 the young man to the National Gallery to see the Turners. 
 They spent a very profitable morning holding high com- 
 munion before them. His unstudied comments seemed to 
 give her a juster view not of art merely, but of life as well. 
 The depth of his intoxication as he stood before these sea- 
 scapes, sensing them, drinking them in, filled her with- 
 wonder. 
 
 "God!" he muttered once. She saw his eyes were full of 
 tears, and she felt a stab of pity. 
 
 Life had not been kind to this man. A thousand subtle.- 
 half apprehended things had already told her that. He had 
 said in his odd way, which was yet so poignant, that he "had 
 started a long way behind scratch." Indeed, it was the sight 
 of these very Turners which had wrung the admission from 
 him. 
 
 After this, they went one day to Manchester Square to 
 see the Wallace collection, and to concerts on several Sunday 
 afternoons, but the climax of esthetic delight was reached for 
 Henry Harper when one evening he was taken to the Opera 
 to hear "Tristan." Edward Ambrose, who it seemed num- 
 bered the super-rich among his friends, had been lent a box 
 on the grand tier. And nothing would content him save that 
 others should share die blessings which attend acquaintance 
 with plutocracy. 
 
 The box was able to accommodate six persons, and those 
 372
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 whom Edward Ambrose lured into honoring it and being 
 honored by it were the three ladies, the Prince, Henry 
 Harper, and himself. Lady Pridmore and the Prince were 
 a little bored undoubtedly. She had the lowest opinion of 
 Wagner and thought the Germans overrated generally. 
 The Prince was more discreet in his condemnation, but he 
 certainly thought the Prelude was too long. Edward Am- 
 brose, Mary, and Silvia had heard it so often that it was al- 
 most ceasing to be an excitement for them : a frame of mind, 
 it is said, which connotes the amateur. As for Mr. Harper, 
 that was an ever-memorable night. 
 
 From this time on he was in a state of growing ecstasy 
 which threatened to become perilous. Existence was now 
 an enchanted thing. A veritable Fairy Princess had come 
 into his life. In speech, in manner, in look, in deed, she was 
 of royal kin. In all the Sailor's wanderings, in all his 
 imaginings, no mortal woman had assumed the significance 
 of this sister of the immortal Klondyke. 
 
 O goddess rare and strange ! He was already in her thrall. 
 She was gray-eyed Athena of whom his reading had lately 
 been telling him, she was Wisdom herself come to earth in 
 the disciplined splendor of her spirit. Already he was 
 prostrate at the shrine. It was for Her that he had sailed 
 the multitudinous seas, it was for Her that he had traversed 
 noisome caverns measureless to man. 
 
 Aladdin, with a flash of the wonderful lamp, had shown 
 him a reason for many things. Strange and dreadful burdens 
 had been laid upon him, every inch of his endurance had been 
 tested in Fate's crucible, that in the end he might win through 
 to a high destiny. Was it for nothing that, shoeless and 
 stockingless, he had cried, "Orrible Crime on the Igh Seas," 
 in the slush of a Blackhampton gutter? Was it for nothing 
 that he had looked on the Island of San Pedro? No; there 
 was purpose behind it all. At the chosen hour the goddess 
 373
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Athena was to appear in order that he might be healed with 
 the divine wisdom. 
 
 Life was touched to very fine issues for the Sailor now. 
 And yet so swift was the change that he did not realize its 
 peril. The sister of Klondyke meant much to him already. 
 Sometimes he read his work to her. When they discussed it 
 afterwards her comments would reveal a depth of knowledge 
 that astonished him, and raised the whole matter of the 
 argument to a higher plane. Many an enchanted talk they 
 had together. So miraculously were their minds in tune 
 that it almost seemed they must have conversed through 
 unnumbered ages. Then, too, in the most tactful and delicate 
 way, she was his guide amid the elusive paths of this new and 
 divine world he was entering. Yet she asked so little and 
 gave so much, such a change was wrought in his life by subtle 
 degrees, that he was blind to the terrible danger. 
 
 It was in late spring, when they had known each other 
 nearly three months, that the Sailor had a first intimation 
 of coming disaster. By that time he had yielded completely 
 to a state of bliss. Moreover, he was now in the thrall of 
 Athena's counterfeit and epitome as imaged by other sailor- 
 men who had held communings with her. She had sent to 
 Brinkworth Street on three successive Mondays, recking 
 nought of her deed, certain magic volumes in which she her- 
 self was mirrored by the mind of a poet: "Richard Feverel," 
 "Beauchamp," and "The Egoist." And then as he felt the 
 sorcery of Renee, Clara, Lucy, and other adumbrations of 
 Athena herself, something happened. 
 
 It was merely that she went out of town for a fortnight. 
 But that fortnight was enough to tell the Sailor one tragic 
 thing. A glamour had gone from the earth. The grass of 
 May was no longer green ; Chelsea's river was no longer a 
 vindication of Turner; the birds no longer sang in Middlesex. 
 
 A strange thing had come to pass. The Sailor had suffered 
 374
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 one sea change the more. But at first, had his life depended 
 on it, he could not have said what it was. He only knew that 
 he was losing appetite for the magic food on which he had 
 been waxing lately : it was no longer possible to devour poetry 
 rind wisdom in the way he had done. Moreover his pen no 
 longer flew across the paper. It took him a whole week to 
 clo that which he now expected to accomplish in a morning, 
 and then the result pleased him so little that he tore it up. 
 
 He was bitterly disconcerted by this mystery. But one 
 day, the eighth of her absence, the truth came to him, like a 
 ghost in the night. Life was no longer possible without Mary 
 Pridmore. 
 
 It was about four o'clock of a morning in June when this 
 fact overtook him. As he lay in bed, facing it as well as 
 he could, it seemed to submerge him. He sprang forth to 
 meet the cold dawn creeping from the Thames, flung up the 
 blind and opened the window. In the grip of the old relent- 
 less force he turned his eyes to the east. The faint flecks of 
 orange across the river were the gates of paradise, yet the 
 Sailor hardly knew whether the sinister gloom beyond was 
 a bank of cloud or the trees upon the Island of San Pedro. 
 
 In an exaltation of the spirit which he had only known 
 once before in his life, he seemed to hear a particular name 
 being twittered by the birds in the eaves. Mary Pridmore! 
 Mary Pridmore! 
 
 It was fantastic, it was ridiculous, it was perhaps a form 
 of mania, but there was the fact. And a policeman, passing 
 along Brinkworth Street at that moment, seemed to tread 
 out that magic name upon its echoing pavement! 
 
 She had given him her address: Miss Pridmore, at Grey- 
 lands, near Woking. He must write, she had said, but not 
 before he had finished "The Egoist," and had made up his 
 mind about it; thereby revealing, as became a properly con- 
 ventional Miss Pridmore, that it was not so much the sailor- 
 375
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 man who was of consequence as his opinion on a highly 
 technical matter! 
 
 In the innocence of his heart he had already written and 
 posted a letter. His views were expressed with a naivete at 
 the opposite pole from Box Hill on these high epistolary 
 occasions. It was not in this wise that the mage addressed 
 his own particular goddesses. 
 
 No answer had yet come to this letter. Therefore in the 
 half light of dawn he sat down to write a second and more 
 considered one. Vain endeavor! It was not for the pen 
 of mortal to unlock the heart of the true prince, unless the 
 genie willed it. And this morning, alas, the genie was not 
 amenable. For it suddenly addressed the Sailor, not with the 
 voice of a magician, but with rude horse sense. 
 
 "Get into bed, you fool," said the genie. "Cease making 
 an idiot of yourself. Athena is as far beyond you as the stars 
 in their courses which have just gone back into heaven." 
 
 The Sailor returned to his bed, to dream. He did his 
 best to be rational, but the task was hopeless. "Mary Prid- 
 more! Mary Pridmore!" twittered the sparrows in the 
 eaves of Chelsea. 
 
 IX 
 
 A LITTLE after five had struck by the church of St. 
 Clement at the bottom of Brinkworth Street, he rose 
 again from his bed. He flung on his clothes, draped 
 a scarf round his neck in lieu of a collar, crept downstairs and 
 out of the front door of No. 14 into the streets of the 
 metropolis. 
 
 This morning there was a coolness in the air. And as 
 soon as he felt it he was able to think more clearly. A sharp 
 thrill ran through his brain. It was hardly three months 
 since he had roamed the streets of London in the morning 
 hours with tumult in his heart. 
 376
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Since that night he had explored whole continents; hardly 
 anything remained of many former worlds he had inhabited : 
 but there was a spear in the side of Ulysses, and he must 
 always remember that none could pluck it out. 
 
 As he reached the bottom of the street and Thames in 
 his majesty smiled grimly upon him, he knew that he was in 
 terrible case. He was no more than a frail mortal, caught in 
 the toils of irresistible forces. What hope had such a one 
 of outfacing the decrees of fate? 
 
 It was not until he had walked for an hour by the waters 
 of Thames that he returned to Brinkwater Street, to break- 
 fast. A letter with the Woking postmark was at the side 
 of his plate. It said : 
 
 Greylands. 
 
 Thursday. 
 MY DEAR MR. HARPER, 
 
 Your view of 'The Egoist' is a new light to me on a most 
 wonderful book. It is not exactly how I see it myself, but I 
 somehow feel you are very near the truth. But when you 
 say that a man such as Willoughby is not quite sane there 
 is a point for argument. You are also too severe, I think, 
 in your judgment of the author of his being. You say he 
 could never really have known what life is. There I frankly 
 don't agree with you, but of course we look at things so dif- 
 ferently, and that is the great charm of ) r our long letter. 
 This is a very stupid one, but I won't apologize for it, be- 
 cause it is the best I can write, and I shall not have the 
 presumption to try to meet you on your own ground. You 
 have sailed the High Seas, whereas I have only read about 
 them. Looking back on the conversations we have had I see 
 you as a master mariner. This is not an idle compliment. 
 You have not yet gained your full stature, you have yet to 
 declare yourself in your power, but believe me you have the 
 strength of a giant, and if such a wish is not an impertinence 
 I hope you will have the courage to achieve your destiny. 
 Yours always most sincerely, 
 
 MARY PRIDMORE. 
 377
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 This letter was like a draft of wine to the Sailor. He read 
 it many times before that day was out, but he turned to 
 it again and again long after he knew every word by heart. 
 It gave him a new zest for his work. He had quite a good 
 day with the pen. Under these high auspices he took new 
 courage to go on. Much was asked of him by this sacred 
 intimacy. By deeds alone could he show himself worthy. 
 
 In reply to this letter he wrote a very long one to Miss 
 Pridmore, at Greylands, near Woking. It was not so discreet 
 and carefully considered as the one he had intended to write ; 
 he let himself go far more than he felt he ought to have done. 
 And the reply he received the day before the fortnight was 
 up was similarly expansive and just as entrancing as the 
 former one. But the whole effect was marred by a grievous 
 disappointment. Instead of returning from Greylands on the 
 morrow, which was Saturday, she was going to stay another 
 week. 
 
 How could he bear the burden of existence for such an 
 intolerable length of time without a sight of her? It was 
 asking more of flesh and blood than flesh and blood thought 
 reasonable. 
 
 The next day, Saturday, was a time of gloom. He could 
 not work at all, and it was no use making a pretence of it. 
 But in the evening, sadly smoking a pipe after so meager a 
 dinner that Mr. Paley was quite disconcerted, there came an 
 inspiration. 
 
 Why not pay a visit to Woking on the morrow? Why 
 not make his way to Greylands wherever Greylands might 
 be and without revealing an unsanctioned presence, gaze 
 upon Athena in all her glory as she came out of church, which 
 he knew she attended every Sunday? 
 
 The idea at once took possession of him. And presently 
 it flamed so hot in his mind that he borrowed a Bradshaw 
 from Mr. Paley and found, as he had surmised, that there 
 378
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 was no lack of trains to Woking on the morrow. He decided 
 that the one which arrived at 9.20 would be the best for his 
 purpose. That would give him plenty of time to locate Grey- 
 lands, and ample opportunity, no doubt, to reach it. 
 
 Sunday came, a fair June day, and the Sailor, having made 
 an early, but in the circumstances surprisingly efficient, break- 
 fast, set forth to Waterloo Station. Such an adventure could 
 receive no sanction from men or gods, but after all, reflected 
 Henry Harper as he went his way, no possible harm can come 
 of it if I don't let her see me! 
 
 The train arrived at Woking only five minutes late, which 
 was really not bad for the Sabbath. Only one porter was to 
 be seen on the deserted platform, and he, with the gruffness 
 of a martyr ill resigned, had "never heard on it," that is to 
 say, had never heard of Greylands. 
 
 This was a rebuff. The clerk in the booking office, suffer- 
 ing also from a sense of injustice, was equally unhelpful. 
 However, outside the station was a solitary flyman in charge 
 of a promiscuous vehicle, and he, it seemed, had heard of 
 Greylands, moreover, scenting a fare, knew how to get there. 
 
 "It's afore you come to Bramshott, just off the Guildford 
 Road. How far? All out three mile. But I shan't ask more 
 than four shilling." 
 
 The Sailor declined this offer with politeness. He would 
 have plenty of time to walk, which was what he wanted to 
 do. The flyman, in spite of a keen disappointment, received 
 such a sincere and cordial "Good morning," that he returned 
 it without discourtesy. 
 
 The first thing to enkindle the senses of the Sailor was the 
 smell of the fresh country earth. A very little rain had fallen 
 in the night, but enough to renew with a divine cleanliness 
 these wide spaces, these open heaths. 
 
 The bracken, young and green and a mass of shining 
 crystals, was uncurling itself on each side of the road. The 
 25 379
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 birds were in full choir, the trees were near the pomp of mid- 
 summer, the sun of June made a glory of the distant hills. 
 It was a noble world. Long before the Sailor came to Grey- 
 lands he was like a harp strung and touched to ecstasy by the 
 implicit hand of nature. 
 
 He knew he was speculating on the bare chance of a sight 
 of Athena. There was nothing to tell him that she would 
 go that morning to Bramshott parish church. The only 
 guide he had was that she went to church at least once every 
 Sunday, and sometimes twice, but whether this would involve 
 attendance at the local service must be the part of faith to 
 answer. 
 
 At any rate, whether he set eyes on her or not, he was 
 trudging to Greylands through the bracken in ease of mind 
 and high expansion of spirit. He might not see her, yet he 
 was giving himself the glorious opportunity. It was on the 
 knees of the gods, but already he felt stronger, braver, saner, 
 for having put it to the touch. 
 
 A little after ten he came to Bramshott village. It was 
 a small place of quaint timber-framed houses, and in the 
 middle was a church. But it all seemed commonplace enough. 
 There was nothing here to minister to an intense emotion; 
 nothing but the sun, the birds, the sky, the bracken, the 
 perfumed loveliness of mother earth. 
 
 He was not such a fool as to fear his ecstasy. Come 
 what might he would live his hour. The towers of Grey- 
 lands, he was told in the village, could be seen from the 
 church porch. There they were, sure enough, banked and 
 massive, cutting across the sun with their importunate red 
 brick. This, at any rate, was her local habitation. It was 
 his to gaze upon even if no other guerdon rewarded him. 
 
 As became a true sailorman, who had sailed six years 
 before the mast, he had brought home a pocket of horse sense 
 from his wanderings. Therefore, as soon as he had drunk his 
 380
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 fill of those flanked towers, he went inside the church and 
 found a decrepit pew-opener who was full of information. 
 
 The service began at eleven. Reverend Manson was the 
 vicar and also the squire of the parish, although Greylands 
 was the rich folk, and they always came of a Sunday morning, 
 whatever the weather, if the Fambly was at home. Their 
 name was Ellis, and they were very rich. 
 
 Armed with this knowledge, the Sailor decided upon a 
 bold course. He took up a position in a corner of the church 
 some way behind the Greylands pew, which had been duly 
 pointed out to him. Here he sat unseen with one solid pillar 
 to conceal him. But he had taken care that in spite of the 
 pillar a clear sight of the Greylands pew should be his. 
 
 It seemed a long time to eleven. But it came at last, 
 and with it, or rather shortly before it, by the courtesy of the 
 gods, came Mary Pridmore. She entered before the Sailor, 
 counting the seconds in his fastness, realized that she was 
 there. 
 
 She wore a simple dress of soft gray and a black hat. 
 But in no particular had she abated a whit of her regality. 
 In that fine outline was a quality that made his pulses leap. 
 As she went down the aisle with two white-spatted, ultra- 
 princelike cavaliers, and two ladies, older than she, yet in 
 garb more fanciful, the Sailor caught just a glimpse of her 
 face. Yes, this was Athena herself, a creature altogether 
 splendid yet restrained, who drew the Sailor's very soul and 
 held it, while she knelt on her hassock, with an air of gravest 
 submission and dignity. 
 
 Suddenly he realized that she was praying. With a rather 
 irrational impulse of shame he fell on his knees. The knowl- 
 edge abased him that he had neglected this obvious duty, 
 but yet he had the excuse, such as it was, that this was the 
 very first time in his life he had entered a church. 
 
 Hitherto if the Sailor must face the truth the whole of 
 38i
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 his intercourse with religious things had been confined to two 
 tea and bun fights with addresses to follow, under the aegis 
 of that light of his youth, the Reverend Rogers, at the Brook- 
 field Street Mission Hall. Therefore he didn't know in the 
 least what to do. However, let him keep his eyes in front of 
 him. When Athena got up he must get up. when she sat 
 down he must sit down. And kneeling as she kneeled, he 
 devoutly hoped that he was rendering homage to the same 
 God as she, although with far less whole-hearted allegiance 
 than hers at the moment. 
 
 It was hard to know what use to make of the Book of 
 Common Prayer that the verger had given him. He had 
 never opened such a volume before. To the best of his 
 recollection one had been lent him at the Brookfield Street 
 Mission Hall, but certainly it had not been opened. It would 
 have been no use to do so, seeing that he could not read a 
 word of it then. But he could read it now, and he desired 
 to render thanks for that miraculous, that crowning mercy. 
 
 The service was long, but to the Sailor it was entrancing. 
 The imperial outline of Athena was ever before him; and 
 yet in despite of her he had at least a part of a devout mind 
 to spare for an ancient mystery. Reverend Manson in his 
 dual role of vicar and squire of Bramshott was something of 
 a patriarch. It was a fine face, and to the Sailor it was a 
 symbolical presence. He was simple and sincere, and what- 
 ever his learning may have been he wore it like a flower. 
 Somehow, Reverend Manson spoke to the heart of the Sailor. 
 During that enchanted hour he followed him into an un- 
 known kingdom. Yet as he did this the young man was 
 thrilled by the thought that he did not journey alone. Athena 
 was with him at every step he took. 
 
 The prayers passed and the singing, which affected him 
 strangely ; then came the sermon, and after that more singing, 
 and then came the verger with the collection plate. The 
 382
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Sailor put in half a sovereign; anything but gold seemed 
 a profanation of a most solemn rite. And then he did an 
 immensely wise thing. He glided swiftly, in the midst of the 
 hymn, out of the church, and out of Bramshott village into 
 the lanes of Surrey. 
 
 MORE than one long and golden hour the Sailor wan- 
 dered through bracken and heather. He didn't 
 know in the least where he was going, and there 
 seemed no reason why he should care. He had a wonderful 
 sense of adventure. Here was something real. This was 
 the noble and gorgeous life to which the streets of Black- 
 hampton, the deck of the Margaret Carey, the sojourn at 
 King John's Mansions were the dreadful but necessary 
 prelude. 
 
 After a long beat across country, and away, away he 
 knew not where, he struck a path which carried him into a 
 charming village tucked away under a hill. It then occurred 
 to him that he was very hungry. The sign of "The 
 Chequers" in the village street brought the fact home. At 
 this neat hostelry with a roof of thatch he was able to de- 
 clare himself a bona fide traveler, and was rewarded with a 
 noble chunk of bread and cheese and a glass of beer, a thin 
 and tepid brew whose only merit was the quality of wet- 
 ness. But such fare and an hour's rest on a wooden bench in 
 a cool parlor with a sanded floor was Elysium. 
 
 After that again the road but only the road in a manner 
 of speaking. The Sailor, roaming now the high seas of his 
 desire, was in no mood at present for the ordered routes of 
 commerce. Let it be the open country. Let him be borne 
 across multitudinous seas on the wings of fancy. Therefore, 
 as a bird flies, he struck across the pathless heather. The 
 383
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 bracken rose waist high, but wherever it ran he followed it, 
 now through the close-grown woods, now across furzy com- 
 mon and open spaces. 
 
 On and on he wandered all the golden afternoon. And 
 then quite suddenly came evening and an intense weariness 
 which was not made less because he didn't know where he 
 was. He only knew that he was in Surrey and very tired. 
 But, all at once, Providence declared itself in an unexpected 
 way. Straight ahead among the trees was a tiny opening, 
 and threading it a hum of telegraph wires. - 
 
 This could only mean that a main road was at hand. 
 Quickened to new life by such a rare piece of luck he pushed 
 on, thanking his stars. Evidently he could not be far from 
 a town or a railway. As a fact, he had struck the Guilford 
 Road, and a hundred yards or so along it the friendliest mile- 
 stone he had ever met assured him that he was three miles 
 from the country town of Surrey. 
 
 Those three miles, honest turnpike as they were, proved 
 a test of endurance. But they ended at last. Footsore and 
 limping now, he crossed a bridge and entered a railway station 
 where the lamps were lit already. And then Providence 
 really surpassed itself! The last train to London was due 
 in twenty minutes. 
 
 The Sailor flung himself down on a seat in the station in 
 a state of heavenly fatigue. It had been such a day as he 
 had never known, and his final gracious act of fortune was 
 a fitting climax. It was true the last train to London was 
 twenty minutes late, but it sufficed to know that it was 
 surely coming. 
 
 Finally it came, and the Sailor entered it. Moreover, he 
 had the carriage to himself, and was able to lie full length 
 on the cushions in an orgy of weariness. He dozed deliciously 
 all the way to Waterloo, which he reached at something after 
 eleven. It was striking midnight by St. Clement's Church 
 384
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 as he turned the latchkey in the door of No. 14 Brinkworth 
 Street. At a quarter past that hour the Sailor was in his 
 bed too deeply asleep even to dream of Athena. 
 
 XI 
 
 ONE of Mary Pridmore's first acts upon her return 
 from Greylands was to summon the sailorman to 
 dine in Queen Street. She was a little peremptory. 
 That is to say, she could take no refusal; it seemed that a 
 certain Mr. Nixon, a Cabinet Minister, had expressed a wish 
 to meet the author of "Dick Smith." 
 
 Miss Pridmore was a little excited by this desire on the 
 part of Mr. Nixon. In her opinion, if you were a member 
 of the Cabinet, it was important you should be met; yet 
 Henry Harper did not attach as much significance to the 
 matter as perhaps he ought to have done. In fact, he was a 
 little vague upon the subject. He knew that the newspapers 
 talked mysteriously about the Cabinet, and abused it fear- 
 fully every morning with the most devoted and courageous 
 persistency; also he remembered that one of Auntie's tem- 
 porary husbands was said to have been a cabinetmaker when 
 he was in work, but neither this fact, nor the attitude of the 
 public press, seemed to afford any reason why he must in 
 no circumstances disappoint the President of the Board of 
 Supererogation. 
 
 "Please don't be so cool to the Cabinet, Mr. Harper," 
 Athena pleaded, while the young man sought a way out of 
 the impasse. "When such a man as Mr. Nixon asks to meet 
 you, it means that you have really arrived. Not that it 
 matters. You have arrived without any help from Mr. 
 Nixon. But he is an old friend of mother's, and he is 
 greatly interested in your book." 
 385
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 The Sailor wanted very particularly, but as delicately as 
 he could, to escape the ordeal of dining in Queen Street, 
 Mayfair. Instinct warned him that this would prove a 
 different matter from a party in Bury Street. The truth was, 
 he had not been able to overcome an unreasonable awe of 
 Lady Pridmore. Then, too, he had an uneasy feeling that he 
 was a little out of his depth with the Prince. Yet again, 
 Miss Silvia, friendly and amusing as she was, gave him a 
 slight sense of hidden, invisible barriers which he could never 
 hope to surmount. 
 
 Mary, however, would take no denial. Her mother would 
 be much -disappointed, and so would Mr. Nixon, and so 
 would Uncle George, who had also expressed a desire to be 
 present. In Lady Pridmore's opinion this really "ranged" 
 Mr. Harper, and with such a person as Lady Pridmore, 
 that was an operation of the first magnitude, not, of course, 
 that her daughter confided that to the Sailor in so many 
 words. 
 
 "I am talking nonsense," said Mary, with that sharp 
 turn of frankness which the Sailor adored in her. "If you 
 don't want to meet people, there is no reason why you 
 should. I sometimes feel exactly the same myself. Mr. 
 Nixon is a bore, and Uncle George well, he's Uncle George. 
 i It will be a tiresome evening for you, but Edward is coming 
 and Jack Ellis, whom we both like, and his fiancee who is 
 quite amusing, and if you really decide to come, I am sure 
 it will please mother." 
 
 The Sailor saw, however, that it would please Mary. And 
 that was reason enough for him to accept the invitation 
 after all. 
 
 When the day came, it was in fear and trembling that he 
 
 put on his new evening clothes, with which he had been 
 
 provided by Edward Ambrose's own tailor. Upon a delicate 
 
 hint from his friend, he discarded his first suit, which he 
 
 386
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 now realized was a little too crude for a growing reputation. 
 Yet, rather oddly, he could hardly be brought to understand 
 that he had such a thing as a reputation. Indeed, it was 
 only in Queen Street, Mayfair, that a reputation seemed to 
 matter. 
 
 A dinner party at No. 50 was a serious affair. He had 
 to begin by shaking hands with Lady Pridmore, who looked 
 like a lady from the walls of Burlington House. A week 
 ago he had been with Mary to the Royal Academy of Arts. 
 Then, also, formidable looking strangers abounded. Fore- 
 most of these was Uncle George. 
 
 Uncle George was an elderly admiral retired. Among 
 the younger members of the family he was known as "Old 
 Blunderbore." His voice, once of great use on the quarter- 
 deck, was really a little too much for a drawing-room of 
 modest dimensions. Also, his opinions were many and they 
 were unqualified, his stories were long and quite pointless as 
 a rule, he was apt to indulge in a kind of ventriloquial enter- 
 tainment when he ate his soup, he drank a goodish deal, 
 and was not always very polite to the servants; yet being 
 Uncle George, his sister-in-law seemed to feel that he was 
 a person of immense consequence, and he did not disguise 
 the fact that he considered her a sensible woman for think- 
 ing so. 
 
 Uncle George seized the hand of the Sailor in marine 
 style, and said, in his loud voice, "Good book you wrote, 
 young man. 'Adventures of Paul Jones.' Good book. 
 Some of it's true, I'm told, and, of course, that makes it 
 much better." 
 
 At this point, Mary the watchful led the Sailor gently but 
 firmly out of the range of Uncle George. 
 
 That warrior, baffled of his prey, fell like a sea leopard 
 upon Edwa-d Ambrose, who, however, countered him quietly 
 and with frank amusement. 
 
 387
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Never made a bigger mistake in your life, Ambrose, than 
 to compare 'Paul Jones' with 'Robinson Crusoe.' " 
 
 Ambrose did not consider it necessary to point out that 
 he had never once mentioned "Paul Jones," and that he was 
 too wise a man ever to compare anything with "Robinson 
 Crusoe." Instead, he laughed the note that was quite 
 peculiar to himself, and mildly asked Uncle George what 
 he thought of the latest performance of the First Lord of 
 the Admiralty. 
 
 In the meantime, the Sailor was having to sustain the 
 shock of a first meeting with the President of the Board of 
 Supererogation. His mentor had already described this 
 pillar of the Government as a bore. But the Sailor was not 
 yet sufficiently acquainted with things and men to regard 
 the Right Honorable Gregory Nixon with this measure of 
 detachment. 
 
 The impact, however, of the Front Bench manner was 
 less severe than was to have been expected. The voice of 
 Mr. Nixon was nothing like so formidable as his appearance. 
 
 "A great pleasure, a great pleasure." Mr. Nixon had a 
 trick of repeating his phrases. "Pray, how did you come 
 to write it all? Angrove thinks" to the profound and 
 morbid horror of the public press, Mr. Angrove at that 
 moment was the Prime Minister of the realm "Angrove 
 thinks . . ." 
 
 Happily, the butler informed his mistress that dinner was 
 served, and for a time Mr. Nixon had to postpone what Mr. 
 Angrove thought. 
 
 It was only for a time, however, that it was possible to do 
 so. The President of the Board of Supererogation did all his 
 thinking vicariously in terms of Mr. Angrove. But there was 
 just one subject on which Mr. Nixon had opinions of his 
 own. That was the subject of divorce, and it may have been 
 for the reason that it was not a cabinet matter. Before the 
 388
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 evening was over, it was tolerably certain that the President 
 of the Board of Supererogation would identify himself pub- 
 licly and at length with the minority report. 
 
 This cheerless fact had to be taken for granted. Divorce 
 in its various aspects was a constant preoccupation of the 
 right honorable gentleman. He had never been married him- 
 self, and was never likely to be. Had this not been the 
 case Mr. Gregory Nixon must have felt bound to defer to 
 any opinion that Mr. Angrove. might or might not have ex- 
 pressed upon the matter. 
 
 "We are in for it now," whispered Mary to the Sailor, who 
 was eating the entree, sweetbreads with white sauce, and 
 wishing he could use a knife as well as a fork. "But it's 
 Uncle George's fault. He's given him a chance with his 
 silly and pointless story, which is a mere perversion of a very 
 much better one. There, what did I say?" 
 
 It was tragically true, that Mr. Nixon was already in the 
 saddle. 
 
 "If he would only say something sensible! He is like 
 that character in Dickens but his King Charles's head is 
 the minority report." 
 
 Still, this may have been a woman's thrust, because Mary 
 did not happen to be an admirer of Mr. Nixon's personality. 
 Yet he was a very agreeable man, and on the subject of 
 divorce he talked extraordinarily well, perhaps quite as well 
 as it is possible for any human being to talk on such a vexed 
 and complicated subject. 
 
 Mr. Nixon knew that, no doubt. The fact was, that just 
 as one man may have a genius for playing chess, another for 
 shooting clay pigeons, a third for hitting a golf ball or casting 
 a fly, so this eminent politician had a genius for discussing 
 divorce. He may have felt that on that topic no human being 
 could stand against him at a small dinner party where the 
 conversation was general. Lady Pridmore seemed grieved. 
 389
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 when her hero began to expose this flaw in the armor of a 
 Christian gentleman, Uncle George became furious and was 
 suddenly rude to the butler, Mary and Silvia and the Prince 
 looked the picture of misery, and Edward Ambrose came 
 within an ace of choking himself. 
 
 All the same, the discussion which followed was of breath- 
 less interest to one person at that table. Henry Harper 
 hung on every word of it. 
 
 Mary herself was the first to take up the gage of battle. 
 And she took it up gallantly. She didn't think for a moment 
 that divorce ought to be made more easy. In her opinion, 
 it ought to be made more difficult. 
 
 "Why ?" asked Mr. Nixon. He asked no more than that, 
 but there was the weight of several royal commissions in the 
 inquiry. 
 
 But Mary had the flame of war in her eyes. She knew 
 what Mr. Nixon's opinions were, and she was heartily 
 ashamed of them. On this subject she could make a very 
 good show for herself, because she happened to feel strongly 
 upon it. 
 
 Mr. Nixon was a latitudinarian. He would have divorce 
 brought within the reach of all classes of the community. 
 It should be equally accessible to the poor and the well-to-do. 
 He would greatly amplify the grounds for obtaining it, and 
 even went the length of affirming that the mutual consent of 
 the contracting parties should alone suffice. Moreover, he 
 saw no reason why marriage should not be a contract like 
 any other for a period of years. 
 
 Mary bluntly considered these were abominable heresies, 
 and several other women, not to mention Mr. Ellis and 
 Uncle George, shared her opinion. Even Lady Pridmore, 
 who in her .heart was horrified by her hero's fall, was moved 
 to remark that it would be impossible to carry on society tm 
 any such basis. 
 
 390
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Of course it would," said Mary, with a. vehemence that 
 was startling. "For better for worse, for richer for poorer, 
 that's my view. I dare say it's old-fashioned, but I'm sure 
 it's right." 
 
 "There I dissent," said Mr. Nixon. "It isn't right at 
 all. Our marriage laws are out of date. They can no longer 
 meet the needs of the community. They are as far behind 
 the twentieth century as a stage coach or a two-horse omnibus. 
 Untold misery and hardship have been inflicted upon the 
 population, and it is high time there was practical legislation 
 upon the subject." 
 
 "Marriage," said Mary, with charming pugnacity, "is 
 the most sacred contract into which it is possible for any 
 human being to enter. And if it is not to be binding, I really 
 don't know what contract is or can hope to be. What is 
 your view of the question, Mr. Harper?" she asked, suddenly, 
 of the young man at her side. 
 
 The Sailor had been listening with an attention almost 
 painful. But he felt quite unequal to taking a part in the 
 argument. Therefore he contented himself with the general 
 statement that it ought to be easier to get a divorce than it 
 was at present. 
 
 "I am grieved to hear you say that," said Athena, with 
 a note in her voice which startled him. "I know I am rather 
 a fanatic, but I really don't see how there can be two opinions 
 upon the matter." 
 
 Feeling very unhappy, Henry Harper did not try to con- 
 test the point. But this was a subject upon which she felt 
 so strongly that she could not leave it in such a very un- 
 satisfactory state. 
 
 "Those whom God hath joined let no man put asunder," 
 said Athena. "How is it possible to go beyond that! I 
 would even abolish divorce altogether." 
 
 The young man felt a sudden chill. 
 391
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Suppose a man had been divorced through no fault of 
 his own?" he said in a far-away voice. 
 
 "I don't think a divorced person ought ever to remarry." 
 
 "That might hit some people very hard," said Henry 
 Harper, perhaps without a full understanding of the words 
 he used. 
 
 "There are bound to be cases in which it would work 
 very cruelly. One realizes that. But ought it to make a 
 difference? There must always be those who have to be 
 sacrificed for the sake of the community." 
 
 Henry Harper appreciated the strength of that argument. 
 At the moment, in the strangeness of his surroundings, he 
 was not able to grapple with it. But he was dimly aware 
 that almost unknown to himself he had come to the border 
 of another perilous country. 
 
 XII 
 
 AS the June night was ablaze with stars Edward Am- 
 brose and the Sailor walked some of the way home 
 together. 
 
 "I hope you enjoyed yourself," said Ambrose. 
 Was it possible for a man to do otherwise with gray-eyed 
 Athena sitting beside him nearly the whole evening! 
 "I enjoyed myself very much," said the Sailor simply. 
 "The Pridmores are very old friends of mine. An in- 
 teresting family, I always think." 
 
 They walked on in silence for a little time, and then the 
 Sailer said suddenly: 
 
 "Mary seems to have strong ideas about divorce." As 
 he spoke he felt a curious tension. 
 
 "Surprisingly so," said Edward Ambrose, in his detached 
 way, "for such a modern girl. Somehow one doesn't quite 
 expect it." 
 
 392
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "No," said the Sailor. 
 
 "It is the measure of her genuineness." Edward Ambrose 
 seemed at that moment to be addressing his words less to the 
 young man at his side than to the stars of heaven. "But she 
 is very complex to me. I've known her all her life. . . . 
 I've watched her grow up." A whimsical sigh was certainly 
 addressed to the stars of heaven. "It is rather wonderful 
 to see all that Pridmore and Colthurst crassness and narrow- 
 ness, that has somehow made England great in spite of 
 itself if you know what I mean . . ." 
 
 The Sailor didn't know in the least, but that was of no 
 consequence to Edward Ambrose in the expression of his 
 mood. 
 
 "... touched to finer issues." 
 
 The Sailor knew now, but his companion gave him no 
 chance to say so. 
 
 "She's so strong and fine, so independent, so modern!" 
 Edward Ambrose laughed his rare note, yet for some reason 
 it was without gaiety. 
 
 The truth was he had long been deeply in love with 
 Mary Pridmore, but it was only in certain moments that he 
 realized it. 
 
 "I suppose you knew Klondyke?" said the Sailor, wist- 
 fully. 
 
 "Her brother Jack? Oh, yes. He's thrown back to some 
 Viking strain. One can hardly imagine his being the brother 
 of Otto and the son of his mother or the son of his 
 father." 
 
 "I can imagine Mary being the sister of Klondyke," said 
 the Sailor. 
 
 "Really! I never see her at quite that angle myself. 
 
 He's a funny chap." Edward Ambrose was really not 
 
 thinking at all of any mere male member of the Pridmore 
 
 family. "Might have done well in diplomacy. Son of his 
 
 393
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 father. Ought to have gone far." Again Edward Ambrose 
 loosed his wonderful note, but it had nothing to do with Jack 
 Pridmore. "And what does he do ? And yet, the odd thing 
 is he may be right." 
 
 "Klondyke's a white man from way back," said the Sailor 
 .abruptly. 
 
 'The phrase was new to Edward Ambrose, who, as became 
 a man with a keen literary sense, turned it over in his mind. 
 And then he suddenly remembered that he owed it to his 
 friends, the Pridmores, to be a little more guarded in his 
 utterances concerning them. 
 
 "Good night, Henry," he said, offering his hand at the 
 corner of Albemarle Street. 
 
 In the same moment, a human derelict fastened upon the 
 Sailor, who had to send him away with the price of a bed 
 before he could return his friend's good night. 
 
 Thinking their thoughts they went their ways. Edward 
 Ambrose crossed in a black mood to St. James Street. For 
 a reason he could not explain a sudden depression had come 
 upon him. A sharp sense of life's tragic complexity had 
 entered his mind. In order to correct its dire influence 
 he lit a pipe and started to read a manuscript which had 
 come to him that morning. It was called, "A Master Mar- 
 iner," Book the First. 
 
 "Damn it all," he thought a few minutes later. "There 
 can be no possible doubt about that boy. If he can only 
 put the whole thing through in this style, what a book it 
 will be!" 
 
 I 
 
 XIII 
 
 N the meantime, the Sailor was walking home to Brink- 
 worth Street, distributing largesse. 
 
 "Poor, broken mariners," he said, when his pockets 
 394
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 were finally empty. "Poor marooned sailormen. I expect 
 all these have seen the Island of San Pedro. I expect some 
 of them are living on it now." 
 
 He went to bed, but not to sleep. He had begun to realize 
 that he was getting into very deep waters. The truth was, 
 he was growing a little afraid. He had been a little afraid 
 ever since that magical Sunday in the wilds of Surrey. And 
 ' now tonight, as he lay tossing on his pillow, a very definite 
 sense of peril was slowly entering into him. If he was not 
 very careful, the tide of affairs would prove too much, and 
 he would find himself carried out to sea. 
 
 As he lay awake through the small hours, the sinister truth 
 grew clear that grim forces were closing upon him again. His 
 will was in danger of being overpowered, if it was not over- 
 powered already. Mary Pridmore had come to mean so 
 much to him that it seemed quite impossible to hold life on 
 any terms without her. Yet it was morbidly weak to admit 
 for a single moment anything of the kind. 
 
 During the week that followed, Mary and "the sailor- 
 rnan" undertook several harmless little excursions. One 
 afternoon she called for him with Silvia in her mother's car 
 and drove by way of Richmond Park to Hampton Court. 
 For the Sailor that was a very memorable day. He had a 
 walk alone in the palace garden with Athena, while Silvia, 
 with a keen sense of the fitness of things, paid a call upon 
 some friends of hers in what she impudently called the Royal 
 Workhouse. 
 
 This enchanted afternoon, Mary and the Sailor didn't 
 talk divorce. Many things in earth and heaven they talked 
 about, but that subject was not among them. They scaled 
 the heights together, they roamed the mountain places. She 
 told him that the first book of "A Master Mariner," which 
 she had been allowed to read in manuscript, had carried her 
 completely away, and she most sincerely hoped that he would 
 26 395
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 be able to sustain a soaring eagle flight through the hundreds 
 of pages of the two books to follow. 
 
 "But you will," she said. "I am convinced of it. I have 
 made up my mind that you must." 
 
 As she spoke the words the look of her amidst a glory of 
 color set his soul on fire. It was as much as he could do to 
 refrain from taking the hand of Athena. He wanted to cry 
 aloud his happiness. She looked every inch of royal kin as 
 thus she stood amid flowers, a high and grave wisdom en- 
 folding her. She was indeed a daughter of the gods, tall, 
 slender, virile, an aureole of purest poetry upon her brows 
 that only John Milton could have hymned in their serenity. 
 
 "Edward Ambrose thinks as I do about it," she said. 
 "He dined with us last night, and afterwards we had a long 
 talk. I hardly dare tell what hopes he has of you. And, of 
 course, one oughtn't. But, somehow, I can't help it ... 
 I can't help it. . . ." 
 
 She spoke to herself rather than to him. The words fell 
 from her lips involuntarily, as if she were in a dream. 
 
 "You are so far upon the road that last night Edward 
 and I willed it together that you should go to the end of 
 your journey. We both feel, somehow, that you must . . . 
 you must . . . you must!" 
 
 Again the Sailor wanted to cry out as he looked at her. 
 He thought he could see the tears leap to her eyes. But 
 that may have been because they had leaped to his own. 
 
 He could not trust himself to speak. He dare not continue 
 to look at her. 
 
 "What a life you must have had !" 
 
 It was the first time that note had been on the lips of 
 Athena. The sound of it was more than music, it was 
 sorcery. 
 
 "You must have had a wonderful life. And I suppose 
 in some ways . . ." The beautiful voice sank until it could 
 396
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 not be heard, and then rose a little. "In some ways, it must 
 have been . . . rather terrible." 
 
 He did not speak nor did he look at her. But had he been 
 a strong man armed, he would have fled that magician- 
 haunted garden. He would have left her then, he would 
 never have looked on her again. 
 
 "... Rather terrible." In an odd crescendo those words 
 fell again from the lips of Athena. "Edward thinks so. But 
 it's an impertinence, isn't it? Except that some lives are 
 the property of others ... of the race. You are not of- 
 fended?" 
 
 "No," he said. And then feeling that it might have the 
 sound of yes, he gathered defiantly all that remained of his 
 will. "My life has not been at all like what you and Mr. 
 Ambrose think. It has been just hell." 
 
 "That is exactly what we imagined it had been," said 
 Athena, with divine simplicity. "And perhaps that is why" 
 her eyes were strangely magnetic "Edward and I have 
 willed it that your life to come . . ." 
 
 A surge of wild blood suddenly darkened the wonderful 
 lamp of Aladdin in the right-hand corner of his brain. 
 
 ". . . shall be crowned with more than thorns." 
 
 She seemed almost to shiver. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," she said, suddenly applying the 
 curb of a powerful will. "It is impertinence. But there is 
 always something about this old garden which seems to carry 
 one beyond oneself. It was wrong to come." 
 
 "Don't say that. . . ." The Sailor hardly knew that he 
 was speaking. "We are running a risk ... but ... but 
 it's worth it. Let us sit on that seat a minute. Shall we?" 
 
 "Yes, and wait for Silvia." She was using the curb with 
 a force that was almost brutal, as many a Pridmore and 
 many a Colthurst had used it before her. 
 
 The Sailor was shattered. But new strength had come to 
 397
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Athena. All the jealous, inherited forces of her being had 
 rallied to the call of her distress. 
 
 "By the way." It was not Athena who was speaking 
 now, but Miss Pridmore, whose local habitation was Queen 
 Street, Mayfair. "I nearly forgot to tell you" it was a 
 clear note of gaiety "a great event has happened. You 
 shall have one guess." 
 
 There was not so much as half a guess in the sailorman. 
 
 "There's news of Klondyke. My mother had a letter 
 from him this morning. It's his first word for nearly a 
 year. He sent a postcard from Queenstown to say he will 
 be home tomorrow, and that I must clean out of his own 
 particular bedroom. Whenever he turns up and wherever he 
 comes from, I have always to do that at a moment's notice." 
 
 "Where's he been this time?" asked the Sailor. 
 
 "Round the whole wide world, I believe." 
 
 "Working his passage?" 
 
 "Very likely. As soon as he arrives, you will have to 
 come and see him. We are going to keep you as a surprise. 
 Your meeting will be great fun, and you are to promise that 
 Silvia and I will be allowed to see it. And you are to behave 
 as if you were aboard the brigantine Excelsior it will always 
 be the brigantine Excelsior to me and greet him in good 
 round terms of the sea. Now promise, please . . . and, of 
 course, no one will mind if you swear. It will hardly be as 
 bad as Uncle George in a temper." 
 
 XIV 
 
 HERE you are." It was the gay voice of the re- 
 turning Silvia. "So sorry I've been so long. But 
 I've had to hunt for you. One might have known 
 you would choose the coolest and quietest spot in the whole 
 garden." 
 
 398 .
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 As the sailorman was handing them into the car, Silvia 
 said: 
 
 "By the way, have you remembered to tell Mr. Harper 
 about Klondyke?" 
 
 "Yes, I have," said Mary. 
 
 "It will be priceless to see you and Klondyke meet," said 
 Silvia. "We shall not say a word about you. You are to 
 be kept a secret. You have just got to come and be sprung 
 on him, and then you've got to tell him to stand by and go 
 about like the sailormen in Stevenson." 
 
 Henry Harper tried very hard to laugh. It was so clearly 
 expected of him. But he failed rather lamentably. 
 
 "I don't suppose he'll remember me," was all he could 
 say. "It's years and years since we met. I was only half- 
 grown and half-baked in those days." 
 
 "Of course, he'll remember you," said Silvia, "if you 
 really sailed round the world together before the mast. But 
 you will let us hear you talk ? And it must be pure brigantine 
 Excelsior, mustn't it, Mary?" 
 
 "He's already promised." 
 
 In the Sailor's opinion, this was not strictly true ; at least 
 he had no recollection of having gone so far as to make a 
 promise. He could hardly have been such a fool. Mary, in 
 |her enthusiasm, was taking a little too much for granted. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," he said, desperately, "but I don't 
 remember having said so." 
 
 "Oh, but you did, surely, as we sat under the tree." 
 
 "No hedging now," said Silvia, with merry severity. "It 
 will be splendid. And the Prince wants to be in at it." 
 
 "I don't think we can have Otto," said Mary. 
 
 "But I've promised him, my dear. It's all arranged. Mr. 
 Harper is to come to dinner. And not a word is to be 
 said to Klondyke." 
 
 "I dare say Mr. Harper won't want to come to dinner ?" 
 399
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Mary looked quizzically across at the sailorman through the 
 dim light of a car interior passing under a Hammersmith 
 archway. "One dinner per annum with the famille Prid- 
 more will be quite enough for him, I expect." 
 
 "That cuts off his retreat, anyway," said Silvia. "And 
 I think, as the Prince is going to be there, it will only be 
 fair to have Edward Ambrose. Of course, Mr. Harper, you 
 fully realize what you have to do. To begin with, you enter 
 with a nautical roll, give the slack of your trousers a hitch, 
 and as soon as you see Klondyke, who, I dare say, will be 
 smoking a foul pipe and reading the Pink \Jn, you will strike 
 your hand on your knee and shout at the top of your voice, 
 'What ho, my hearty!'" 
 
 "How absurd you are!" said Mary, with a rather wry 
 smile. She had just caught the look on the Sailor's face. 
 
 "Well, my dear, that's the program, as the Prince and I 
 have arranged it." 
 
 Henry Harper was literally forced into a promise to dine 
 in Queen Street on an appointed day in order to meet Klon- 
 dyke. There was really no escape. It would have been an 
 act of sheer ungraciousness to have held out. Besides, when 
 all was said, the Sailor wanted very much to see his hero. 
 
 Nevertheless, grave searchings of heart awaited him now. 
 His sane moments told him alas! those in which he could 
 look dispassionately upon his predicament seemed to be few 
 that a wide gulf was fixed between these people and himself. 
 In all essentials they were as wide asunder as the poles. 
 Their place in the scheme of things was fixed, they moved 
 in a definite orbit, while at the best of it he was a mere 
 adventurer, a waif of the streets whom Klondyke had first 
 taught to read and write. 
 
 The fact itself was nothing to be ashamed of, he knew 
 that. It was no 'fault of his that life had never given him 
 a chance. But a new and growing sensitiveness had come 
 400
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 upon him, which somehow made that knowledge hard to 
 bear. He did not wish to convey an impression of being 
 other than he was, but he knew it would be difficult to meet 
 Klondyke now. 
 
 This, however, was weakness, and he determined to lay it 
 aside. Such feelings were unworthy of Klondyke and of 
 himself. The price to be paid might be heavy he somehow 
 knew that far more was at stake than he dared think but 
 let the cost be what it might, he must not be afraid to meet 
 his friend. 
 
 All too soon, the evening came when he was due at Queen 
 Street. He arrayed himself with a care almost cynical in 
 his new and well cut clothes, brushed his hair very thor- 
 oughly, and took great pains over the set of his tie. Then 
 giving himself doggedly to a task from which there was no 
 escape, he managed to arrive in Queen Street on the stroke of 
 the hour of eight. 
 
 An atmosphere of veiled amusement seemed to envelop 
 him as soon as he entered the drawing-room, but the hero was 
 not there. The Sailor was informed by Silvia in a gay 
 aside that Klondyke always made a practice of being abso- 
 lutely last in any boiled-shirted assembly. The Prince, how- 
 ever, was on the hearthrug, wearing his usual air of calm 
 proprietorship, and with an expression of countenance even 
 more quizzical than usual. Edward Ambrose was also there, 
 looking a trifle perplexed and a little anxious. Lady Prid- 
 more in white satin and really beautiful black lace had that 
 air of regal composure she was never without, but Mary and 
 Silvia were consumed with frank amusement. 
 
 "Klondyke is still struggling," said Silvia, "but he won't 
 be long." 
 
 It was easy to see that the hero and his boiled shirt were 
 a standing jest in the family circle. He was really a figure 
 of legend. Incredible stories were told of him, all of which 
 401
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 had the merit of being based upon truth. He would have 
 been a source of pure joy for the things he had done could 
 he ever have been forgiven for the things he hadn't done. 
 
 Dinner had been announced a full five minutes, and a 
 frown was slowly submerging the Prince, when Klondyke 
 sauntered in, his hands deep in his pockets, looking extremely 
 brown and soigne and altogether handsome. By some mir- 
 acle he was even better turned out than his younger brother. 
 
 "Here he is!" cried Silvia. 
 
 But the Sailor had no need to be told it was he. This was 
 a Klondyke he had never known and hardly guessed at, but 
 after a long and miraculous nine years he was again to grasp 
 his hand. Somehow, at the sight of that gay and handsome 
 face, the room and the people in it passed away. He could 
 only think of Klondyke on the quay at Honolulu starting to 
 walk across Asia, and here was his hero brown as a chestnut 
 and splendidly fit and cheerful. 
 
 Silvia, with a display of facetiousness, introduced Mr. 
 Harper, the famous author, while the others, amused yet 
 strangely serious, watched their greeting. The Sailor came 
 forward shyly, once again the ship's boy of the Margaret 
 Carey. But in his eyes was a look which the eyes of that 
 boy had never known. 
 
 The first thing Klondyke did was to take his hands out 
 of his pockets. He then stood gazing in sheer astonishment. 
 
 "Why . . . why, Sailor!" 
 
 For the moment, that was all. 
 
 The Sailor said nothing, but blind to all things else, stood 
 looking at his friend. It was the old note of the good com- 
 rade his ears had cherished a long nine years. Yes, this was 
 Klondyke right enough. 
 
 The hero was%still gazing at him in sheer astonishment. 
 He was taking him in in detail : the well cut clothes, the air 
 of neatness, order, and well-being;. And then a powerful fist 
 402
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 had come out square to meet that of Henry Harper. But not 
 a word passed. 
 
 It was rather tame, perhaps, for the lookers-on. It was 
 part of the Klondyke tradition never to take him seriously. 
 An utterly comic greeting had been expected between these 
 two who had sailed before the mast, a greeting absurdly 
 j nautical, immensely grotesque. It seemed odd that there 
 should have been nothing of this kind in it. 
 
 Those two commonplace words of Klondyke's were all 
 that passed between them before they went down to dinner, 
 at any rate. And throughout the meal, the eyes of the two 
 sailormen were continually straying to each other to the 
 exclusion of everything else. Somehow, to Henry Harper 
 it was like a fantastic dream that he should be seated in 
 Elysium with the goddess Athena by his side and the im- 
 mortal Klondyke looking at him continually from the head 
 of the table. 
 
 All through dinner, Klondyke was unable to overcome a 
 feeling of astonishment that Henry Harper should be sitting 
 there. He couldn't help listening to all that he said, he 
 couldn't help watching all that he did. It was amazing to 
 hear him talk to Mary and his mother about books and plays 
 and to watch his bearing, which was that of a man well 
 used to dining out. To be sure, Klondyke was not a close 
 observer, but as far as he could see there was not a single 
 mistake in anything Sailor said or did, yet nine years ago, 
 when he left him in tears on the quay at Honolulu, he was 
 just a waif from the gutter who could neither write nor 
 read. 
 
 When the women had returned to the drawing-room and 
 Klondyke and Edward Ambrose and the Prince sat smoking 
 their^cigars, while Henry Harper was content with his usual 
 cigarette, it suddenly grew clear to one of the four that 
 these two sailormen very much desired to be left together. 
 403
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Prince," said Edward Ambrose, "let us go and talk 
 Shakespeare and the musical glasses." 
 
 As soon as the door had closed Klondyke said: "Now, 
 Sailor, you must have a little of this brandy. No refusal." 
 He filled two liqueur glasses with the fastidious care of one 
 who knew the value of this magic potion. "Sailor" Klon- 
 dyke had raised his own glass and was looking at him as of 
 old, with eyes that had traversed all the oceans of the world 
 as well as all its continents "I'm very glad to see you 
 here." 
 
 As soon as the glass touched the lips of Henry Harper, 
 something within him seemed to beat thickly, and then an 
 odd sort of phrase began to roll through his brain. Somehow 
 it brought with it all the sights and the sounds and the odors 
 of the Margaret Carey. It was a phrase he had once heard 
 a Yank make use of in the forecastle of that hell-ship, and 
 it was to the effect that Klondyke was a white man from 
 way back. 
 
 That was quite true. Klondyke was a white man from 
 way back. Not that Sailor had ever doubted it for a 
 moment. 
 
 XV 
 
 TO the disappointment of the drawing-room, Klondyke 
 and the sailorman sat a long time together. They 
 had much to say to one another. 
 
 It was Klondyke, however, who did most of the talking. 
 
 He had not changed in the least, and he was still the hero 
 
 of old, yet the Sailor felt very shy and embarrassed at first. 
 
 But after a while, the magic of the old intercourse returned, 
 
 and Henry Harper was able to unlock a little of his heart. 
 
 "Life is queer," said Klondyke. "And the more you see 
 
 of it, the queerer it seems. Take me. If I had been born 
 
 404
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 you, I'd have been as happy as a dead bird swabbing the 
 main deck and shinning up the futtock shrouds and hauling 
 in the tops'ls. And if you had been born me, you'd have 
 been as happy as a dead bird going great guns and doing all 
 sorts of honor to the family. I wanted to go into the Navy, 
 but my mother and the old governor wouldn't stand for it. 
 It must be diplomacy, because the governor had influence, and 
 I was the eldest son and I ought to make use of it. What a 
 job you would have made of that billet! And how you 
 hated the Margaret Carey. It was hell all the time, 
 wasn't it?" 
 
 "Yes," said the Sailor, "just hell." 
 
 "Still, it helped you to find yourself." 
 
 "Yes if I was worth finding." 
 
 "Of course you were." 
 
 "Anyhow, I took the advice you gave me," said the 
 Sailor, with his odd simplicity. 
 
 "You'd have given it yourself in the end without any 
 help of mine. But it's strange that when I read your book 
 I never guessed that you were the author, and that you were 
 writing about our old coffin ship and the Old Man and 
 the mate . . . what was his name ?" 
 
 "Mr. Thompson." 
 
 "Since deceased, I hear." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "One always felt he was a proper cutthroat." 
 
 "I'd not be sitting here now, but for Mr. Thompson. 
 I'll tell you." 
 
 Klondyke's eyes began to shine. 
 
 In a few words and very simply, the Sailor told the story 
 of the Island of San Pedro. 
 
 "I've sometimes thought since," was his conclusion, "that 
 they were just guying me, knowing they could frighten me 
 out of my wits." 
 
 405
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Of course they were," said Klondyke. "That's human 
 nature. But you had rotten luck ever to come to sea. How- 
 ever, you are in smooth waters now. You'll never have to 
 face the high seas again, my boy." 
 
 "I don't know that," said the Sailor, with a sudden sick- 
 ness of the heart. 
 
 "No fear. The wicket's going to roll out plumb. You 
 are the most wonderful chap I have ever met. Now I sup- 
 pose we had better join the others." 
 
 They went upstairs and had a gay reception. 
 
 "I wish you would dance a hornpipe or something," said 
 Silvia, "or cross talk as they did on the brigantine Excelsior, 
 else we shall none of us believe that either of you have ever 
 been before the mast at all." 
 
 "I tell you, Sailor, what we might do," said Klondyke. 
 "If we can remember the words, we might give 'em that old 
 chantey that was always so useful round the Horn. How 
 does it go?" 
 
 Klondyke sat down at the piano and began to pick out 
 the notes with one finger of each hand. 
 
 " 'Away for Rio!' I'll sing the solo, if I can remember 
 it, and you sing the chorus, Sailor!" 
 
 Such stern protests were raised by those who knew the 
 capacity of Klondyke's lung power that very reluctantly he 
 gave up this project, yet the very indifferent backing of his 
 shipmate may have carried more weight with him than the 
 pressure of public opinion. 
 
 When Edward Ambrose and the Sailor had gone their 
 ways and the others apparently had gone to bed, Klondyke 
 doffed the coat of civilization in favor of a very faded and 
 generally disreputable Ramblers' blazer, lit his pipe, and 
 then, in the most comfortable chair he could find, began 
 to read again "The Adventures of Dick Smith on the High 
 Seas." 
 
 406
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Yes, he's a wonderful chap," he kept muttering at in- 
 tervals. After he had been moved to this observation several 
 times, he was interrupted by the reappearance of the Prince, 
 who looked uncommonly serious, in an elaborate quilted 
 silk smoking jacket that he affected in his postprandial 
 hours. 
 
 "This chap Harper," suddenly opened the Prince. "I 
 want to have a word with you about him." 
 
 The look on the face of the elder and less reputable brother 
 seemed pretty clearly to show that this desire was not shared. 
 But duty had to be done, and the Prince seated himself 
 doggedly on the high fender, his back to the fire. 
 
 "Tell me," he said, "what you know about this chap 
 Harper." 
 
 Somehow, Klondyke hardly felt inclined. For one thing, 
 the slow but sure growth of the Foreign Office manner, 
 which he was able to detect in his younger brother every 
 time he returned from his wanderings, always seemed to 
 rattle him a bit. Of course Otto was a first-rate chap ac- 
 cording to his lights; still, Klondyke was the elder, and if 
 questions must be asked he did not feel bound to answer 
 them. 
 
 A mild but concentrated gaze conveyed as much. 
 
 "Ted Ambrose brought him here," said the Prince, with 
 1 a nice feeling for these nuances. "A good chap, I dare 
 say . . . quite a good chap . . . but . . ." 
 
 The mild gaze was still concentrated, but if possible more 
 limpid. 
 
 ". . . but somehow a little . . . Mother thinks so, any- 
 way." 
 
 "Oh, yes, I dare say," said Klondyke, with a casualness 
 that rather annoyed the Prince. 
 
 "Fact is ... I might as well tell you . . ." The tone 
 of the Prince implied nothing less than a taking of the bull 
 407
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 by the horns. "We all think Mary is inclined to ... 
 to . . ." 
 
 With nice deliberation, Klondyke laid "The Adventures 
 of Dick Smith" on the hearthrug. 
 
 "Mother thinks," said the Prince plaintively, after a pause, 
 "it would be better if he didn't come to the house so much." 
 
 Klondyke frowned heavily and tapped his pipe on a fire- 
 dog. 
 
 "How long's he been coming here?" he asked. 
 
 "Some little time now." 
 
 Klondyke still frowned. 
 
 "Mother thinks," said the plaintive Prince, "that Mary 
 sees far too much of him. And I rather agree with her." 
 
 "Why?" asked Klondyke stolidly. 
 
 "Why?" repeated his younger brother, looking at him 
 with wary amazement. "Well, to start with, he ain't a 
 gentleman." 
 
 Klondyke tapped his pipe again. 
 
 "I don't mind telling you," said the Prince, "we all think 
 she is making a perfect idiot of herself." 
 
 "What's Ted Ambrose think?" 
 
 "I've not asked him, but I believe mother has mentioned 
 the matter." 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 "She thought he seemed a good deal worried." 
 
 Klondyke's frown had assumed terrific dimensions. 
 
 "She's old enough to take care of herself, anyway," he 
 said, beginning abruptly to refill a foul briar from a small 
 tin box that he unexpectedly evolved from the pocket of his 
 trousers. 
 
 "That's hardly the point, is it?" said the Prince, with a 
 deference he didn't feel. 
 
 "What is the point?" asked Klondyke, striking a wooden 
 match on the sole of his shoe. 
 408
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Mother has mentioned the matter to Uncle George, and 
 he thinks the chap ought not to come here." 
 
 "Oh, that's rot," said Klondyke coolly. "That's like the 
 old fool." 
 
 "I'm afraid I agree . . . with Uncle George, I mean 
 . . . and so does Silvia." 
 
 "What's Ted Ambrose think about it? He generally 
 knows the lie of a country." 
 
 "He'd give no opinion to mother. But he was certainly 
 worried." 
 
 Klondyke resumed his frown. He felt rather at sea. He 
 was, in spite of birth and training, a man of primal instincts ; 
 he looked at things in an elemental way. Either a man was 
 a good chap or he was not. If he was a good chap, no matter 
 where he may have started from in the race of life, he was 
 fitted by nature to marry his sister. If he was not a good 
 chap, no matter what else he was or might be, he didn't 
 count anyway. 
 
 "You see" the plaintive voice of the Prince broke in 
 upon Klondyke's unsubtle analysis of the situation "no one 
 knows anything about him. Ambrose sprang him on us from 
 nowhere, as you might say. Of course, he's a man with a 
 sort of reputation ... in his own line . . . but he's not 
 one of us ... and it wouldn't have so much mattered if he 
 had been a gentleman." 
 
 "There I don't altogether agree," said Klondyke with con- 
 viction, but without vehemence. "I always think with Ted 
 Ambrose on that point. Gentlemen are not made. They 
 are born, like poets and cricketers." 
 
 "That's rot," said the Prince, with a sudden deepening 
 of his tone of courtesy which made it seem excessive. "You 
 are mixing, I think aren't you two entirely different 
 things?" 
 
 "No, I don't think so," said Klondyke. "Harper is not 
 409
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 a chap who would ever go back on a pal, and that's all that 
 matters." 
 
 The Prince suddenly became so deeply angry that he de- 
 cided to go to bed at once, and accordingly did so. 
 
 XVI 
 
 FOR a number of people there followed anxious days. 
 Mary's friends made no secret of their belief that 
 she was losing her head. They were much troubled. 
 She was a universal favorite, one of those charming people 
 who seem to have an almost poetic faculty of common sense. 
 But she was thought to be far too wise ever to be carried 
 away by anything. 
 
 The Pridmores, at heait, were conventional. They were 
 abreast of the times, were lively and intelligent, and could be 
 at ease in Bohemia, but up till now Bohemia had known the 
 deference due to Queen Street, Mayfair. 
 
 Lady Pridmore had always thought and Silvia, Uncle 
 George, and the Prince had agreed with her that Mary was 
 predestined for Edward Ambrose. For one thing, Edward, 
 when his father died, would be very well off not that the 
 Pridmores were in the least mercenary. They simply knew 
 what money means to such a being as man in such a world 
 as the present. Then Edward was liked by them all. It 
 had long been a mystery why Mary had not married him. 
 He was always her faithful cavalier, and a rather exceptional 
 man. And now she had suddenly gone off at half cock, as 
 Uncle George expressed it. 
 
 During this period, tribulation was rife at other places 
 also. Edward Ambrose was in no enviable frame of mind. 
 The woman he loved and the friend he served were cutting 
 deeply into his life. But of one thing he was convinced 
 neither of them realized their danger. 
 410
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 He was a sufficient judge of his kind to know that Henry 
 Harper was not a man willfully to practice deceit. Ambrose 
 was aware of the skeleton in the cupboard. It was ever 
 present to his mind. And his position was rendered painfully 
 difficult by the fact that he was under a pledge not to reveal 
 it. The root of the matter, as far as Harper was concerned, 
 was that his inexperience of the world might cause him to 
 drift into a relationship which he did not intend and could 
 not foresee. 
 
 Ambrose was tormented by a desire to tell Mary Prid- 
 more all he knew. Surely it was his duty. Her ignorance 
 of certain facts, which Harper most unwisely withheld, was 
 a very real and grave danger. Ambrose realized how quickly 
 such a woman, almost unknown to herself, could sweep a 
 man off his feet. He also felt that Henry Harper, with 
 his atmosphere of mystery, and his remarkable powers which 
 needed the help of a strong and stable intelligence, 
 might make an irresistible appeal to a girl like Mary 
 Pridmore. 
 
 Ambrose felt that he alone knew the peril which beset 
 his friends. Yet he could not warn one without treason to 
 the other. His regard for both seemed to preclude all inter- 
 ference. He had a sincere affection for a brave-spirited man ; 
 for Mary he had long cherished something more than affec- 
 tion; yet in circumstances such as these an untimely word 
 might do mischief untold. 
 
 For the present, therefore, he had better remain silent. 
 
 In- the meantime, the Sailor had descended once more into 
 the pit. He had been cast again, by that grim destiny which 
 had never failed to dog him from the outset of his life, into 
 the vortex of overmastering forces. He felt the time was 
 near when without the help of Mary Pridmore he could not 
 keep on. 
 
 One day, worn out with anxiety, he called at Spring 
 3T 411
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Gardens and had an interview with Mr. Daniel Mortimer. 
 That gentleman could give little solace. The woman drew 
 her allowance every week. There was reason to believe that 
 she had bad bouts of drinking, but Mr. Mortimer was still 
 unable to advise a petition for divorce. The whole matter 
 was full of difficulty, there was the question of expense, also 
 it would be wise not to ignore the consequences to a rising 
 reputation. 
 
 Henry Harper felt the force of this reasoning. It was no 
 use attempting to gainsay the view of an expert in the law. 
 Moreover, he had a clear knowledge of Mary's opinion 
 on the subject of divorce. In any event she would never 
 consent to marry him. 
 
 The young man took leave of the kindly and wise Mr. 
 Mortimer, and with despair in his heart walked slowly back 
 to Brinkworth Street. Every yard of the way he wondered 
 what he should do now. He felt like an animal caught 
 in a trap. For more than a week he had not been able to 
 think of his work. 
 
 He had not seen Mary for some days. He was trying 
 to keep her out of his thoughts. But the more he denied 
 himself the sight of her, the less power he had to fight the 
 demon in whose grip he was now held. He was unable to 
 work, he slept little, he had no appetite for food; for the 
 most part, he could only walk up and down this wonderful 
 and terrible city of London which had now begun to appall 
 him. 
 
 He had outgrown his present strength. And, as only 
 a woman can, she realized where and how she might help 
 him. This deep-sea mariner should not call to her in vain. 
 Athena, in her high maternal sanity, was ready to yield 
 all. 
 
 Three days ago, when he had seen her last, and had sat 
 with her in the shade of the park, her eyes, her voice had 
 412
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 told him that. They had told him that, even when it had not 
 been his to ask. It was this implicit declaration which had 
 so gravely frightened him. The truth struck home that he 
 was not treading the path of honor. 
 
 By the time he had returned to Brinkworth Street, he 
 knew the necessity of a definite course of action. It was 
 madness to go on in their present way. They had come to 
 mean too much to each other; besides, a perception keenly 
 sensitive had told him that her friends were beginning to 
 regard him with a tacit hostility. It had not found expres- 
 sion in word or deed ; he was always received with kindness ; 
 but except on the part of Klondyke, there was no real warmth 
 of sympathy. 
 
 Circumstances had placed him in a terribly false position^ 
 and he must be man enough to break his fetters. He knew 
 that there was still one way of doing that. The course was 
 extreme, but honor demanded it. 
 
 He had been invited to tea the next day at the house of a 
 friend they had in common. It was to be a large party, 
 and he knew that if he carried out his original intention of 
 going, he would see Mary and no doubt have a chance 
 of talking to her. Much painful reflection that evening 
 finally decided him. He would go prepared to tell every- 
 thing. It must be their last meeting, for she would 
 surely see how hopeless was the intimacy into which they 
 had drifted. 
 
 Having quite definitely made up his mind, he was able to 
 snatch a little more sleep that night than for some weeks 
 past. Moreover, he got up the next day with his resolution 
 strong upon him. Let the cost be what it might, he must 
 accept a bitter and humiliating situation. 
 
 At half past four that afternoon he was one of many more 
 or less distinguished persons filling the spacious rooms of a 
 house in a fashionable square. The hostess, a quick-witted 
 413
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 adroit woman, was very much a friend of both. She had 
 a real regard for Mary, also a genuine weakness for a man 
 of genius. 
 
 Athena was there already when the Sailor arrived. And 
 as she sat on a distant sofa, nursing her teacup, with several 
 members of her court around her, the young man was struck 
 yet again, as he always was, by her look of vital power. 
 She had in a very high degree that curious air of distinction 
 which comes of an old race and seems to strike from a dis- 
 tance. The features were neither decisive nor regular, 
 but the modeling of the whole face and the poise of the 
 head no artist could see without desiring to render on 
 canvas. 
 
 The Sailor had to steel his will. The thought was almost 
 intolerable that at one blow he was about to sever his friend- 
 ship with her. She was so strong and fine, she was a sacred 
 part of his life, she was the key of those central forces that 
 now seemed bent on his destruction. 
 
 Presently, amid the slow eddy of an ever changing crowd 
 they came together. Her greeting was of a peculiarly simple 
 friendliness. She seemed grave, with something almost be- 
 yond gravity. There was a shadow upon a face that hardly 
 seemed to have known one in all its years of shelter and 
 * v security. 
 
 "Is there anywhere we can talk?" he managed to say 
 after a little while. 
 
 She rose from her sofa with the decision he had always 
 lacked. 
 
 "Let us try the library," she said. 
 
 And with the assured skill of an experienced navigator 
 of social waters, she led him there and found it empty.
 
 JHE SAILOR 
 
 XVII 
 
 HENRY HARPER'S decision had been taken finally. 
 But as soon as he entered this large and dull room, 
 he felt the chill of its emptiness in an almost sym- 
 bolical way. It was what his whole life was going to be, 
 and the thought nearly wrung a groan out of him. 
 
 She was puzzled by a certain oddness in his manner, a 
 feeling which of late had been growing upon her. It was 
 hard to understand. She knew his need of help, his craving 
 for it, yet now the time had come when he had only to ask 
 in order to receive it he seemed at the mercy of a painful 
 indecision which had the power to wound. 
 
 Here and now a subtle withdrawal of the highest part of 
 himself seemed more than ever apparent. It was even in his 
 face this afternoon, in the wonderful face of Ulysses that had 
 all the oceans of the world in it. What did it portend ? Was 
 it that he was afraid? 
 
 What had he to fear? How could such a person as herself 
 repel him? She had all to give if only he would demand it 
 of her. 
 
 Of that he must be aware. The haunted eyes of the sailor- 
 man too clearly proclaimed his knowledge. 
 
 "How is 'A Master Mariner' ?" she asked, in order to end 
 the silence which had intervened as soon as they entered the 
 room. 
 
 "It doesn't get on," he said, in a voice that did not seem 
 to be his own. 
 
 "I'm very sorry." The deep note was sincerity itself. 
 
 "I don't know why," said the Sailor, "but it's too much 
 for me now." 
 
 "Of course, it is all immensely difficult. The latter part 
 particularly. Somehow, one always felt it would be." 
 415
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "It's not that," said the Sailor. "Not the difficulty, I 
 mean. That was always there, and I was never afraid of 
 it. But I think I am losing grip." 
 
 She looked at him, a little disquieted. There was a note 
 in his voice she heard then for the first time. 
 
 "That must not be," she said. "There's no reason for it." 
 
 "Ah, you don't know. I begin to feel now that I'll never 
 be able to put it through." 
 
 "Why should you feel that? What reason can you have, 
 a man of your wonderful powers, a man with all his life 
 before him?" 
 
 "I just haven't the strength," he said in his quaint speech, 
 "and that's all there is to it." 
 
 To her surprise, to her horror almost, he suddenly covered 
 his face with his hands. Somehow, the sight of a weakness 
 so palpable in a thing so strong and fine was unnerving. 
 
 "I'll never be able to put it through by myself." 
 
 As she stood facing him, she felt the truth of that. 
 
 "Is it necessary?" The words seemed to shape them- 
 selves in despite of her. 
 
 "Yes." Involuntarily, he drew away from her. A sure 
 feminine instinct waited for the words that should follow. 
 She read in those strange eyes that he must now speak. She 
 could almost feel, as she stood so near him, a slow and grim 
 gathering of the will. She could almost hear the surge of 
 speech to his lips. But no words came, and the moment 
 passed. 
 
 Now that he had to strike the knife into his heart, it could 
 not be done. It was not cowardice, it was not a failure of 
 the will, it was not even a momentary weakness of the soul. 
 He was in the grip of ineluctable forces, of a power beyond 
 himself. As he stood not three yards from her with the 
 table supporting him. his whole nature seemed wrenched and 
 shaken to the roots of being. 
 
 416
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 She couldn't, help pitying him profoundly. There was 
 something that had crept into his eyes which harrowed her. 
 Poor mariner! For the first time in her life, she felt a 
 curious sudden tightening of the throat. She could have 
 shrieked, almost, at the sight of this tragic pain it was not to 
 be hers to ease. 
 
 A moment later, she had regained control. 
 
 "You must keep on," said Athena. "You must keep on." 
 
 But he knew that he was down, and that the ineluctable 
 forces were killing him. 
 
 She may have known it, too. No longer able to bear the 
 look upon his face, she drew back, an intense pity striking 
 her. 
 
 Was she upon the verge of some great tragedy? She did 
 not dare to frame the question. 
 
 "Mary." . . . She awoke to the sound of the Sailor's 
 voice and of her own name on his lips. . . . "I've made up 
 my mind to to go away for a bit." 
 
 In the midst of these throes, an inspiration had come to 
 him. It was no more than a miserable subterfuge, but it 
 was all he could do. 
 
 "I somehow feel I'm on the rocks. I think I'll go a 
 voyage. I'm losing myself. I'll perhaps be able to . . ." 
 
 A stifling sense of pity kept her silent. 
 
 ". . . to persuade Klondyke to come along with me." 
 
 "I wish I could have helped you." The words were 
 wrung from her. 
 
 "You can't," he said, and he spoke with a gust of passion 
 as one half maddened. "No one can help me." 
 
 She saw his wildness, and somehow her strength went out 
 to him. 
 
 "You can't think what I've been through," he said, with 
 something worse than rage entering his voice. 
 
 She knew she couldn't even guess, and was too wise to 
 417
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 try. But again she was hurt by the sight of a suffering it 
 could never be hers to heal. 
 
 "Henry," she said, "I would like you always to feel 
 and always to remember that whatever happens to you, 
 and wherever you are, I am your friend, if only I may 
 be." 
 
 To this high and rare simplicity of Athena the goddess, he 
 could make no response. 
 
 "And now I must go," she said, gathering the whole force 
 of her resolution. 
 
 "Suppose I walk with you a little of the way?" he said. 
 
 She almost guessed that he meant it for their last stioll 
 together. 
 
 It was a long step from the scene of the tea party to 
 Mary's door, but no finer evening for a walk could have 
 been desired. Neither knew why they chose to take it. For 
 both it was a mere prolongation of misery. Perhaps it was 
 that he still hoped, against hope itself, for the moment to 
 return in which it would be possible to tell the secret that 
 locked his lips. 
 
 Humiliated as he was, there may still have been that 
 thought in his mind. But it was vain in any case. There 
 could be no real intention now of telling her. By the time 
 they had crossed the park, he had cast it entirely away. And 
 now they fell to talking of other matters. 
 
 Unwilling to let her go, cleaving to her in his weakness to 
 the very last second of the very last hour, he persuaded her 
 to sit a few minutes on an empty bench under the trees . . . 
 under the trees within whose shade he had sat when he had 
 seen her first. And there he had from her lips a definite 
 expression of her faith. 
 
 It was with that they parted finally, as he believed. 
 He dared not put it to himself in a way so explicit, it was not 
 a thing he could face in such bare, set terms, but in his brain 
 418
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 the Aladdin's lamp was burning fitfully, and it was this that 
 flashed the cruel light of truth. 
 
 ". . . If ever you want help !" 
 
 Those were the words of their parting, as the pressure of 
 his ringers met the last touch of hers. And then she was 
 gone, and he was gone . . . and then a bleak, dull blind- 
 ness came over him and he knew that more than life had gone 
 with her. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 A RUDDERLESS ship in mid-ocean, he wandered 
 long and aimlessly about the byways of the uty. It 
 was past midnight when he found himself back in 
 Brinkworth Street. Without taking off his clothes, he flung 
 himself face down on his bed. 
 
 After a while, he tried very hard to pull himself together. 
 He must be a man, that was the whole substance of his 
 thoughts. As ever, he knew that to be his simple duty. 
 Throughout his overdriven life, he had always had to tell 
 himself, and other people had always made a point of telling 
 him, to be a man. Auntie had been the first to ask it of 
 him when she had dragged him upstairs and tied him to the 
 bed. "Enry Arper" he had heard that shrill snigger above 
 the roar of Knightsbridge "what I shall do to you is going 
 to hurt, but you must be a man and bear it." A jolly looking 
 policeman had told him to be a man at the police station. 
 Mr. Thompson had told him to be a man the night he car- 
 ried him to sea. The Old Man had given him equally sound 
 advice when he had gravely told him of the Island of San 
 Pedro. 
 
 All his life, it -seemed, he had not lacked good advice, and 
 hell only knew he had always done his best to follow it. But 
 as now he lay on his bed in Brinkworth Street in a cold 
 summer dawn, he felt that he was done. 
 419
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 The plain fact was he was coming to believe that he had 
 not had a square deal. Life was tolerable for some, no 
 doubt; for people like the Pridmores, for instance, and his 
 friend Edward Ambrose he was not envying them meanly, 
 nor was he merely pitying himself for those who had been 
 born right, who had had a fair start, who had been given 
 a reasonably plumb wicket to play on, as Klondyke expressed 
 it. But for gutter breeds such as himself, there was not 
 one chance in a million of ever winning through. He had 
 done all it was possible for a man to do, and now with a 
 feeling of more than impotence, he realized that he was out. 
 
 He had learned a trick of praying this last year or two, 
 but in this cold summer dawn he had no longer a use for it. 
 What was the good ? Somebody it was not for him to say 
 Who had not played fair. Henry Harper, you must be a 
 man and bear it! A sudden gust of rage swept through him 
 as he lay. The voice of Auntie was coming back to him 
 out of the years. And she was exhorting him to an in- 
 human stoicism in order that she might serve her private 
 ends. 
 
 Some time between six and seven, in a state of awful 
 dejection, he undressed and got into bed. He did not want 
 Mr. Paley to find him like that when he brought the water 
 for his bath at eight o'clock. It would not be right to wound 
 the feelings of a good man. But if Henry Harper had had 
 the courage to take a razor, well. . . . Mr. Paley would 
 not have found him in bed. Since that night on the railway, 
 now many years ago, he had lost the nerve for anything of 
 that kind. He had always thought that on that night some- 
 thing had snapped in the center of himself. 
 
 At eight o'clock, when the punctual Mr. Paley came with 
 the water can, Henry Harper told him that he was not going 
 to get up at present, and that he would not be in need of 
 breakfast. 
 
 420
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Aren't you well, sir?" asked Mr. Paley, in his discreet 
 voice. 
 
 "No, I'm not very well." 
 
 "I'm sorry, sir." Mr. Paley had the gift of expressing 
 true sympathy in his tone and bearing. "You have been a 
 little run down some days now, have you not, sir?" 
 
 "Longer than that," said the Sailor. "Ever since I've 
 been born, I've been a poor sort of brute." 
 
 "Robust health is an untold blessing. I'm glad to say 
 I've always enjoyed it myself, and so has Mrs. Paley. Would 
 you like to see a doctor, sir? I'll go along at once to Dr. 
 Gibb at the end of the street." 
 
 "A doctor is no use for my complaint." 
 
 Mr. Paley was grieved, but he wisely withdrew without 
 further comment. 
 
 The Sailor turned his face to the wall with a vague sort 
 of prayer that he might be allowed to die. But it was not to 
 heaven; the deadly pressure of events had forced him in 
 spite of a lifetime's hard and bitter fighting to accept Mr. 
 Thompson's theory. The troll of Auntie, who was exuding 
 gin and wickedness around his pillow, had been now rein- 
 forced by the mate of the Margaret Carey. 
 
 A pleasant pair they made, these trolls from his youth. 
 And there were others. If only that delicate spring had not 
 snapped, he must have jumped out of bed and settled the 
 business out of hand. "Be a man," said the voice of Auntie. 
 "There's the case on the dressing table straight before your 
 eyes. Be a man, Enry Arper, and set about it." 
 
 Auntie was right. He got out of bed. He took up the 
 case and stood an instant holding it in his hand. 
 
 "Lay holt on it, bye." That was Mr. Thompson's gruff 
 tone, and it was followed immediately by Auntie's shrill and 
 peculiar snigger. 
 
 There was one other thing, however, on the dressing 
 421
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 table: a comfortable, green-backed edition of the "Poems of 
 John Milton." The Sailor didn't know why, but he took up 
 the now familiar volume with his unoccupied hand. It may 
 have been mere blind chance, it may have been one last 
 cunning effort on the part of the genie, for by some means 
 the book came open at a certain place in the middle. Sud- 
 denly the brown case fell to the carpet with a thud. 
 
 In spite of the trolls besieging him, the Sailor crept back 
 to his bed with the book in his hands. What wonderful, 
 wonderful worlds were these ! And he was little more than 
 twenty-eight. And the sun of Brinkworth Street had entered 
 his chamber to tell him that this was a gorgeous morning of 
 midsummer. 
 
 The battle was not over yet, however. Auntie and Mr. 
 Thompson in the hour of their necessity had summoned to 
 their aid the Old Man and Cora Dobbs. It was now all hell 
 let loose. 
 
 "Chuck it, ducky." It was Cora's voice now. "You are 
 not a man, you know, and never will be. You are no use, 
 anyway. Get out of your little bed, now, and cut off the 
 gas at the meter." 
 
 Time went on, but he made no attempt to reckon how 
 much of it. He was too fiercely occupied in fighting the 
 damned. Once or twice it seemed that they must surely 
 down him. Their insane laughter hovered round his pillow 
 continually, even in the broad light of a very glorious day. 
 Sooner or later, he feared, there could only be one end to it 
 all. John Milton or no John Milton, they almost had him 
 out of bed again, when Mr. Paley came quite unexpectedly 
 into the room. 
 
 "Mr. Pridmore, sir, has called. Shall I ask him up ?" 
 
 Klondyke, however, had come up without waiting to be 
 invited. 
 
 "Mary told me you were a bit below the weather," he 
 422
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 said, "so I thought I'd come and see you. What's the mat- 
 ter?" 
 
 The Sailor could not answer the question. He could only 
 gaze with wild eyes at his friend. 
 
 "You've been working too hard, I expect," said Klondyke, 
 looking at him shrewdly. "Overdriving the buzz-box, my 
 boy, with this new book that Ted Ambrose thinks is going 
 to be great. You'll have to have rest and a change." 
 
 Klondyke perched on the edge of the bed, as if it had been 
 Sailor's bunk in the half-deck of the Margaret Carey. 
 
 "Mary said you talked of going away for a bit, and she 
 thought you might like me to come with you. Now what 
 do you say to a little trip as far as Frisco, for the sake of old 
 times? You can put me down there. I'm just beginning 
 to feel, after a month here, that I shall be none the worse for 
 another trek to Nowhere and back. And then you can come 
 home by the next boat and finish your job, or go on a bit fur- 
 ther round the coast, if you fancy it. What do you say, 
 old friend?" 
 
 The Sailor, supine in his bed, was unable to say anything. 
 But the trolls had no use for Klondyke. Hissing and 
 snarling they had flown already to distant corners of the 
 room. 
 
 "Shall we fix that? I'll go now to Cockspur Street and 
 see if I can book a couple of saloon berths for tomorrow 
 there's a boat for Frisco most Wednesdays, and you are not 
 up to roughing it at present. Besides, there's no reason >yhy 
 3 T ou should. Now, Sailor, what do you say?" 
 
 In spite of all the trolls there were in the universe, Klon- 
 dyke was still Klondyke, it seemed. Perhaps he alone could 
 have conquered them. 
 
 "That fixes it," he said. "Just get your gear together. 
 You won't want much. And mine's ready any time. I'll 
 go along at once, and come back and report." 
 423
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Two minutes later, Klondyke was away on his errand, only 
 too happy at the prospect of being in harness again. 
 
 For the time being, the trolls were overthrown. The battle 
 was not yet won, but a staunch friend had given the Sailor 
 new fighting power. He was by no means his own man ; he 
 felt he never could be again; all the same, when Klondyke 
 returned about an hour later with the news that he had been 
 able to secure two berths for the following day, Henry Har- 
 per was dressed, he was bathed and shaved, he was clothed in 
 his right mind more or less. 
 
 XIX 
 
 ON the following night, the Sailor put once more to 
 sea. But it was very different faring from any he 
 had known before. A craft of this kind was an- 
 other new world to him. Indeed, so little did it resemble 
 the Margaret Carey, that it was hard to realize at first that 
 he was once more ocean bound. Even the tang of salt in the 
 air and the wash of the waves against the sides of the great 
 ship were scarcely enough to assure him that he was again 
 afloat. 
 
 It was the presence of Klondyke which really convinced 
 him. 
 
 "I never thought we should come to this," said his friend 
 as they lingered in boiled shirts over an excellent dinner and 
 a band the second day out. "It's better than having to turn 
 out on deck at eight bells with your oilskins soaked and the 
 nose of the Horn in front of you. You think so, Sailor, I 
 know." 
 
 Henry Harper confessed that he did. 
 
 "How you stuck it all those years, I can't think," said 
 Klondyke. "How any chap sticks it who doesn't really take 
 424
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 to the sea passes me. But you were always a nailer for 
 keeping on keeping on." 
 
 The case might be even as Klondyke said, but the Sailor 
 had about reached his limit. 
 
 Klondyke himself, who was not a close observer, was 
 struck by the change. He couldn't quite make him out. 
 In his peculiar way, he had a great regard for the Sailor. 
 He considered him to be a white man all through ; and know- 
 ing so much of the facts of his life, he felt his grit was quite 
 extraordinary. But now it had begun to seem that this gal- 
 lant fighter was losing tenacity. There was something about 
 him which suggested a boxer who has been knocked to the 
 boards, who is trying to rise before he is counted out and 
 sickly realizes that he can't. 
 
 What had happened? It was clear that he had had an 
 awful facer. How had he come by it? Klondyke belonged 
 to a type which strictly preferred its own business to that of 
 anyone else, but it was impossible not to ask these questions, 
 knowing as much of Henry Harper as he did. 
 
 Was Mary the cause? Had the blow been dealt by her? 
 Somehow, he did not think that could be the case. And 
 yet there was a doubt in his mind. He knew, at least, that 
 Mary was fearfully upset. It was she who had come to 
 him with a particular look in her eyes and had proposed 
 a voyage for the Sailor on the plea that he had been work- 
 ing too hard. That certainly did not suggest any unkindness 
 on her part. All the same, he knew that his family strongly 
 disapproved of her intimacy with Henry Harper. 
 
 Putting two and two together, he was half inclined to 
 believe that the Sailor had proposed to Mary, and that against 
 her own wish she had refused him. But even that hypothe- 
 sis did not account for the morbid and rudderless state he 
 was in now r . 
 
 Nevertheless, the Sailor had still a little fight left in him. 
 425
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 About the third or fourth day out, he had begun to make 
 .an effort to pull himself together, and then it, became clear 
 that the voyage was doing him good. In a week he was a 
 new man. He was still deeply mysterious, he was not keen 
 and alert as he used to be, but to the unsubtle mind of 
 Klondyke that implied a case of overwork. 
 
 Indeed, as far as he was concerned, that must always be 
 the primary fact in regard to the Sailor. How the chap must 
 have sapped in the nine years since last they had put to sea. 
 It was almost incredible that a man who had made a repu- 
 tation with his pen, who in speech and bearing could pass 
 inuster anywhere, should have been picked out of the gutter 
 unable to write his own name, and set aboard the Margaret 
 Carey. 
 
 Yes, this chap had enormous fighting power. There was 
 not one man in a million who could have overcome such a 
 start as that. It would be a tragic pity if he went under 
 just as he was coming into his own. 
 
 When they reached Frisco the Sailor was so much more 
 himself that Klondyke, who at one time had been disinclined 
 to leave him, felt that now he might do so without any fear 
 for his safety. In every way he seemed very much better. 
 He was brighter, less silent. There was still a mysterious 
 something about him which he could not account for, but he 
 felt the worst was past and that there was no reason why 
 Henry Harper should not go home alone. 
 
 Therefore, when they came to Frisco, Klondyke carried 
 out his plan of trekking to nowhere and back, where boiled 
 shirts would cease to trouble him, and where, with a rifle and 
 a few cartridges, and one or two odds and ends in a make- 
 shift carry-all which had accompanied him to the uttermost 
 places of the earth, he would really feel that he was alive. 
 He invited the Sailor to come with him, yet he knew that 
 such a mode of life was not for Henry Harper. And the 
 426
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Sailor knew that, too. For one thing, he would be wasting 
 precious time he could not afford to lose; again, now that 
 lighting power was coming back to him, he must run his rede, 
 must prepare to outface destiny. 
 
 Still, in taking leave of his friend, he was trying himself 
 beyond his present strength. 
 
 The fact struck him with cruel force at the moment of 
 parting on the waterfront at Frisco. Klondyke, wearing a 
 fur cap the replica of one that would ever be the magic 
 possession of Henry Harper, was on the point of going his 
 way, and the Sailor had booked a return passage to Liver- 
 pool. It came upon him as they said good-by that it was 
 more than he could bear. 
 
 "You'll win out," were the last words spoken in the fa- 
 miliar way. "You've not got so far along the course to be 
 downed in the straight. Keep on keeping on, and you'll get 
 through." 
 
 That was their farewell. But as soon as the Sailor 
 was alone, the awaiting trolls were on him. He was in 
 better shape now than in those hours in Brinkworth Street, 
 but the conflict was grim. Every ounce of will was 
 needed. 
 
 He went aboard feeling dazed. Even yet he had not 
 grasped the worst. He did not know until the next day that 
 England and Brinkworth Street were not yet possible, and 
 that perhaps they never would be. Therefore, when they 
 touched at the port of Boston he changed ship and put about, 
 having suddenly determined to make the grand tour as a 
 saloon passenger. 
 
 He was well off for money. Popularity had come to him 
 as well as technical success. He could afford to sail round 
 the world first class. And having reached this wise decision, 
 he began in earnest to fight destiny. 
 
 He had made a pledge that he would not write to Mary, 
 23 427
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 also, if his will endured, he would never see her again. It 
 seemed the only course after that last failure. 
 
 John Milton was w r ith him, also the Bible and Shake- 
 speare and Shelton's "Don Quixote" and Boswell's "Life of 
 Johnson," and a translation of Montaigne. Moreover, he 
 had the Iliad and the Odyssey in English, also a Greek Lexi- 
 con. With the aid of this, he spent many an hour in quarry- 
 ing painfully, but with a certain amount of success, in the 
 original. This royal company did much to hold the trolls 
 at bay. But in the evening they would hover round the lamp 
 in the saloon; and during the night, when he awoke to the 
 wash of the sea, expecting to hear eight bells struck and half 
 wishing he was dead in consequence, because he would have to 
 tumble out of his bunk and ascend shivering to the deck of 
 the Margaret Carey, then was a time for the foe. But with 
 John Milton and a greater than John by his elbow, and 
 with Aladdin's wonderful lamp still burning fitfully through 
 the night, although of late the genie had apparently forgot- 
 ten to trim it, the demons for all their hissing and snarling 
 were never really able to fasten their fangs upon him as they 
 had done that morning in Brinkworth Street. 
 
 Weeks went by. He saw strange sights and many fa- 
 miliar ones, he touched at some unknown and some half 
 remembered ports, .he watched the sun gild many majestic 
 cities. Once again he saw on the starboard bow the trees 
 of the Island of San Pedro. Once again he saw the sharks 
 with their dead-white bellies and heard their continual plop- 
 plop in the water. Once again he heard the Old Man come 
 up the cabin stairs. This time the heavens did not open, per- 
 haps for the reason that there was no heaven to open for 
 Henry Harper now. 
 
 About the third day out from Auckland on the homeward 
 tack, he put forth a great effort to come to grips with "A 
 Master Mariner," Book Three. But after a week of futile 
 428
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 struggling he discovered that Aladdin's lamp was extin- 
 guished altogether. 
 
 The knowledge was bitter, but it must be accepted. Hope 
 was the magic fuel with which the lamp was fed. If that 
 priceless stuff should fail, the lamp could burn no more. 
 Whatever he did now it seemed as clear as the glorious sun 
 of the Antipodes that the mariner would never come into 
 port. 
 
 Several times he changed ship. Mind and will steadily 
 developed, but he was never captain of his soul. The de- 
 mons of the past no longer besieged him, but Book Three 
 was still becalmed. The hour was not yet in which he could 
 return. 
 
 Months went by, but the future remained an abyss. 
 
 In the end, Ulysses came back to the shores of his native 
 Ithaca for a prosaic but sufficient reason. It was merely 
 that he was in need of money. After eleven months of 
 wandering on the face of the waters, the liberal store he 
 carried had almost disappeared. Quite suddenly one night, 
 in the Mediterranean, he took the decision to return to 
 London. 
 
 XX 
 
 THE Sailor knew as soon as he stepped on the platform 
 at Charing Cross that he had no wish to see again 
 that city which had treated him with such unkind- 
 ness.- He left his gear in the station cloak room, and then 
 by the time he had gone a few yards he regretted bitterly 
 that he had ever come back at all. The mere sight of the 
 omnibuses, of the names on the hoardings, of the grotesquely 
 miscellaneous throngs in the Strand, told him that .eleven 
 months of ceaseless wandering haa hone notrring, or at tne 
 best very little, to heal the wound he bore. 
 429
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 These streets brought an ache that, steel his will as he 
 might, he could hardly bear. There to the right was the 
 National Gallery. It was on just such a morning as this that 
 she had led him to the Turners. Farther along were Pall 
 Mall and Edward Ambrose. 
 
 Five minutes he stood on the curb at the top of North- 
 umberland Avenue, trying to decide whether he should cross 
 Trafalgar Square. Once more the old sense of disintegra- 
 tion was upon him. Once more he was asking himself what 
 he ought to do. 
 
 Eleven months had passed, but things were as they were. 
 In that time not a line had been added to the work he was 
 trying to do. Yet he felt that his first duty was to go to 
 see Edward Ambrose. Let him go now. It was no use shirk- 
 ing it. But a curious instinct was holding him back. It was 
 illogical, he knew, but every moment that he stood there 
 seemed to make the task more difficult. 
 
 In a state of irresolution he crossed the road as far as an 
 island in the middle. The sense of familiarity was growing 
 at every step. Within a very few yards was Spring Gardens. 
 He could see two doors up the street the brass plate of 
 Messrs. Mortimer mocking him through a weird substitute 
 for the light of day. 
 
 In spite of all the months that had passed, the sight of 
 that brass plate was like a knife in his body. He turned 
 from the island to dash across a very dangerous road, and 
 came within an ace of the death that would have been so 
 welcome. A taxi avoided him by an almost miraculous 
 swerve, for which, when he realized it, he did not thank the 
 driver. 
 
 All at sea he crossed the Square and entered Pall Mall. 
 In the process of time he came to the home of Brown's Maga- 
 zine. Edward Ambrose gave him a welcome that nearly 
 brought tears to his eyes. 
 
 430
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "My dear boy!" he said. "Not one word in all these 
 months! Anyhow you have come back to us." 
 
 It was impossible to doubt the friendship and the affection 
 of this greeting. The Sailor felt a pang of shame. As a 
 fact, he had been too modest to expect such loyalty. 
 
 "I'm . . . I'm sorry." 
 
 "You had no right to forget your friends," said Edward 
 Ambrose, a little resentfully. He knew the workings of this 
 childishly open mind, and it hurt him that a sincere emo- 
 tion should have been underrated. 
 
 "Yes," said the Sailor queerly. "It was rotten." 
 
 "You are looking splendidly brown and well," said Ed- 
 ward Ambrose as soon as it seemed the part of wisdom to 
 speak. "You don't mean to say that Dick Smith has been 
 sailing the high seas all these long months?" 
 
 "Not Dick Smith. Ulysses." 
 
 Ambrose gave a little start of pure pleasure. 
 
 "Then," he said, "a master mariner has really come into 
 port?" 
 
 "No." He stifled a groan. "And never will, I'm think- 
 ing. That poor sailor man is still becalmed east by west of 
 Nowhere, and never a sign of land on either bow." 
 
 "But you must put it through somehow. Tell me ... is 
 there anything I can do to help you?" 
 
 The Sailor shook his head miserably. 
 
 "I can't accept that as final," said Edward Ambrose. It's 
 it's I hesitate to say what it may be if only you carry 
 it out as you have conceived it. If you don't do that I some 
 how feel the high gods will never forgive you ... or me." 
 
 If anything could have rekindled Aladdin's lamp in the 
 Sailor's soul it would have been the enthusiasm of this friend. 
 But it was not to be; the trolls had him captive. 
 
 "I'm sorry," he said gently, knowing the stab he dealt. 
 "It is no fault of yours. It's you that's made me all I am
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 . . . and if any man could have helped me here you would 
 have been that man. But I'm just a broken mariner. It's no 
 use mincing it I'm done." 
 
 The stark simplicity of the confession made Edward Am- 
 brose gasp. He could say nothing. In the honest eyes was 
 a look of consternation. 
 
 "A mariner has got to have a star to work by. Even old 
 Ulysses had to have that. But there's not one for Henry 
 Harper in all the firmament." He fell into a sudden, odd, 
 and queer kind of rage. "It's a black shame. If only I'd 
 had a fair chance I'd have put this thing through. You 
 might say" the harsh laugh jarred worse than the baffled 
 anger "I'm a chap who has been handicapped out of the 
 race. However . . ." The Sailor became silent. 
 
 Ambrose felt himself to be shaken. The impotent fury 
 of this elemental soul was something beyond his experience. 
 He hardened his heart. It must be his task to anchor this 
 derelict adrift in uncharted seas until such time as help 
 could come to him. 
 
 "Henry," he said suddenly, "does Mary Pridmore know 
 you have returned?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 Edward Ambrose mustered his courage. 
 
 "If you don't bring the manner into port it will be a heavy 
 blow for her." 
 
 "What has it to do with her?" was the almost savage 
 reply. 
 
 "She believes in you." 
 
 "Why should she?" There was almost a note of menace. 
 
 "She is your friend. We are both your friends." 
 
 The quiet tone somehow prevailed. 
 
 "Of course," he said queerly, "you are both my friends. 
 And I'm not worthy of either." 
 
 "Suppose we leave her to be the judge of that." 
 432
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 The Sailor shook his head. 
 
 "She can't judge anything until . . . until I've told her 
 . . . about Cora." 
 
 "She has not been told?" Ambrose spoke casually, im- 
 passively. Somehow he had allowed himself to guess that 
 the Sailor had told her, and that she had sent him away. 
 Why he should have come to that rather fantastic conclusion 
 he didn't know, except that she had not had a line from 
 Henry Harper in eleven months. But he saw at once that 
 he was wrong. 
 
 He felt that he must use great care. The ice was even 
 thinner than he had suspected. Moreover an acute percep- 
 tion told him that nothing would be easier than for ill in- 
 formed well-meaningness to commit a tragic blunder. 
 
 "You don't mean to say you thought I had?" The Sailor 
 put his question oddly, disconnectedly. 
 
 "The fact is," said Edward Ambrose jesuitically, "I have 
 never been impertinent enough to think the matter out. I 
 know nothing beyond the fact that Mary Pridmore is very 
 much your friend." 
 
 "There's no use in saying that when I can never be hers." 
 
 "Ah, there I don't agree," said Edward Ambrose calmly. 
 
 "Why not look the facts in the face?" 
 
 "Yes, why not?" 
 
 "Friendship between us is impossible. That's why I went 
 away. We ... we played it up too high. Friendship be- 
 tween a man and a woman is no use ... at least not to 
 her and me ... although . . ." 
 
 "I'm not talking merely of friendship," said Edward 
 Ambrose, very deliberately. "I'm talking of something else." 
 
 So charged with meaning were the words that the Sailor 
 recoiled as if he had received a blow. 
 
 "What . . . what are you saying!" he cried with a sud- 
 den blind rage in his face. 
 
 433
 
 BOOK V 
 
 FULFILLMENT 
 
 WHY do you taunt me?" cried the Sailor after a 
 pause hard to endure. 
 "I offer neither reason nor excuse for the words 
 I have used," said Edward Ambrose calmly. "I can only 
 say that she is more than your friend. You must remember 
 that you have been away eleven months. In the meantime 
 water still continues to flow under London Bridge." 
 
 "I don't follow you " 
 
 "Yes, of course one assumes too much. One forgets 
 that you have been away so long and that apparently you 
 have not yet seen Mortimer." 
 
 "Mortimer!" 
 
 "Perhaps I ought to have told you . . . yes ... I can 
 see I ought to have. Mortimer has news." 
 
 "News!" 
 
 "Now I am going to put you out. Go at once and see 
 him." 
 
 Henry Harper presently realized that he was again on the 
 pavement of Pall Mall, but he was too bewildered to know 
 how he had come there. He was in a kind of dream. But 
 all he did had a specific purpose. For instance, he was going 
 to see Mr. Mortimer. Yet he could not understand what 
 lay behind his friend's desire that he should see the solicitor 
 at once. The true explanation never occurred to him. 
 435
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Mr. Mortimer had to tell him that his wife had died two 
 months ago in the course of one of her bouts of drinking. 
 At first the Sailor could not grasp the significance of the 
 statement. It hardly seemed to make any impact upon him. 
 He thanked Mr. Mortimer for all his services in a trying 
 matter, and went out into the street, apparently giving very 
 little thought to what had happened. 
 
 Here, however, he grew suddenly aware that the aspect 
 of things had completely changed. Something had occurred 
 which lay beyond his ken, but he knew already that the 
 whole universe was different. 
 
 A new man in brain and heart, he collected his things 
 from Charing Cross and drove to Brinkworth Street. His 
 room was ready to receive him in spite of the fact that he 
 had been away eleven months. He had written to Mr. 
 Paley from time to time inclosing money and telling him 
 that he hoped to be home presently. And home he was 
 at last. 
 
 It was not at once that he could set his thoughts in order. 
 But one fact was clear. He was free. He was free to enjoy 
 the light of heaven, to breathe the breath of life. 
 
 In the height of the tumult now upon him he took a re- 
 solve. The barrier was down. He would put all to the 
 touch. Somehow he had an implicit faith. A gulf was fixed, 
 he knew, between Mary and himself. She belonged to a 
 world far removed from the one in which he had been born, 
 in which he had passed so much of his life. But he had that 
 final pledge, "If ever you want help!" Well, there was only 
 one way in which she could help him, and that she knew as 
 well as he. 
 
 Soon after five he set out. If he went leisurely he would 
 
 reach Queen Street about six, a propitious hour. She was 
 
 generally at home at that time. It was hard to believe that 
 
 he was the same man who had stood that morning on the 
 
 436
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 curb at Charing Cross. He had absolutely nothing now in 
 common with that broken mariner. 
 
 In those few brief hours he had suffered one sea change 
 the more. The genie had relit the lamp. Again he was a 
 forward-looking man. Nay, he was more. He was a prince 
 of the blood approaching the portals of an imperial kingdom. 
 
 Otto, a prince of that other kingdom, issued from the 
 threshold of No. 50, while Venables, the butler, with polite 
 surprise, was in the very act of receiving the Sailor. 
 
 "Hulloa, Harper," said the Prince. "Turned up again. 
 We had all given you up for lost." 
 
 It might have been possible for a delicate ear to detect 
 something other than welcome in the voice of his highness. 
 But whether such was the case or not was a matter of no 
 concern to the returned mariner. 
 
 Mary was at home and alone. At first he was a little un- 
 nerved by the sight of her, and she perhaps by the sight of 
 him. The look of sadness in her face distressed him. 
 
 "Not one line," she said. But there was nothing of Ed- 
 ward Ambrose's half reproach in her voice. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "I was beginning to think I should never see or hear of 
 you again." Her simplicity was the exact counterpart of 
 his own. 
 
 "I don't think I ever meant you to." 
 
 She waited patiently for him to add to his strange words 
 and was slow to realize that he couldn't. 
 
 "That would have been cruel," she said at last. 
 
 "It would have been cruel either way. However, it is all 
 done with now." 
 
 "I'm afraid I don't understand," she said, finding that 
 speech had failed him again. 
 
 "I don't know whether I can tell you." 
 
 Ought he to tell her? A harrowing doubt arose. She 
 437
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 knew that there had been some grave reason for his going 
 away. But what the hidden cause had been, hers was not a 
 nature that would ask. She only knew that if speech and 
 bearing meant anything, he was deeply in love with her, and 
 yet for some unfathomable reason he had shirked the issue. 
 
 And now he had returned after these long months, which 
 to her as well as to himself had been a time of more than 
 bitterness, there was still this shadow between them. Yet 
 it surely belonged to the past. There was no barrier be- 
 tween them now, except the memory of a secret which some- 
 how he could not believe was vital. 
 
 In her immense desire to serve him she was ready to give 
 all that he might ask. But there was still a reservation in 
 his mind. In the sudden revelation, as it seemed to him, of 
 the divine clemency, he was overwhelmed by a desire to con- 
 fess all. 
 
 There may have been no need to do so, yet that was not 
 a question to ask. She was his, he knew it; she would not 
 be less, she would be doubly his, if she learned the circum- 
 stances of his life. Besides, so high was the revulsion of feel- 
 ing now upon him that it seemed the course of honor. And 
 was it not her right to know all concerning him before he 
 demanded so great a sacrifice? 
 
 In this mood he never for a moment doubted that it would 
 be a further bond. Let him tell his secret now that his lips 
 had been unsealed. 
 
 "Mary," he said, "do you remember your words eleven 
 months ago?" 
 
 "I remember them perfectly." 
 
 "Well, there was only one way in which you could help 
 me then, and that was why I went away. And I never 
 intended to return unless I could claim that which you offered 
 me." 
 
 "Was it necessary?" '" 
 
 438
 
 'Mary,' he said, 'do you remember your words eleven months ago?'
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Mere friendship is no use to you and me. But I couldn't 
 ask you to marry me then, although I knew ... at least 
 I thought I knew . . . you'll tell me if I am wrong . . ." 
 
 She couldn't help smiling a little at this rather childlike 
 confusion. 
 
 ". . . that you would marry me if I asked you. But I 
 didn't, because I couldn't. Do you understand that? Do 
 you still look at things in the way you did?" 
 
 The soul of a poor mariner might be tempest tossed 
 on all the oceans of the world, but the soul of Mary 
 Pridmore was the fixed star of his faith. The mere thought 
 seemed to brace his courage for the task that honor laid 
 upon him. 
 
 He took her hand. It was the only manifestation he 
 would allow himself until he had told her. 
 
 "I could not ask you to marry me then," he said, "because 
 I had a wife." 
 
 "You had a wife." She repeated the words numbly, in- 
 credulously. 
 
 "I had a wife," he said, doggedly. "She died two months 
 ago." 
 
 "And . . . and you never told me!" 
 
 "No." 
 
 There was an edge to her tone that had struck like a 
 knife. 
 
 "Henry!" 
 
 "I tried," he said feebly. "God knows I tried." 
 
 "Yoo. don't mean you deceived me?" Her voice was 
 hardening. 
 
 "No." A queer kind of faintness was coming over him, 
 "I don't mean that. You never asked me and . . . and I 
 never told you." 
 
 "But you knew I took it for granted that you were not 
 married." 
 
 439
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 The order and precision of her speech began to frighten 
 him. He could give no answer. 
 
 "You knew that." Her voice was hurting him terribly. 
 
 "I don't say I didn't," he said. He had a sick feeling 
 that he was already in the jaws of a trap. God in heaven, 
 what madness had lured him to tell her when he had no need 
 to do so ! 
 
 "Then you deceived me." The voice was pitiless. 
 
 He looked at her with scared eyes. 
 
 "Don't say that," he said. 
 
 He saw there was a cold light blazing in her and he began 
 to grow miserably afraid. 
 
 "I tried very hard not to deceive you," he said. "God 
 knows I tried. And it was because I couldn't go on with it 
 that I went away and . . . and never meant to see you 
 again." 
 
 "I don't quite think that is an excuse." 
 
 Somehow the words seemed to goad him on to unknown 
 perils. But he was in a quicksand, the ground was moving 
 under his feet. 
 
 "You don't know what my life has been," he said des- 
 perately. "You don't know what a wife I married, you 
 don't know anything about me, else you wouldn't be so 
 hard." 
 
 She realized while he was speaking, realized with a kind 
 of nausea, which came suddenly upon her, that all he said 
 was true. There was a peculiar note creeping into his voice 
 that assailed her fastidious ears like a sudden descent to a 
 subterranean region which she knew to exist, but of which 
 she had never had first-hand knowledge. The subtle change 
 of tone was telling her as nothing else could have done 
 that it was perfectly true that she knew neither what his 
 life had been nor anything about him. 
 
 "Mary." In spite of an intense feeling for him it was 
 440
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 beginning to make her wince to hear her name on his lips. 
 "If you don't mind I think I'll tell you one or two things 
 about my life and . . . and how I came ... to get mar- 
 ried." 
 
 "I think perhaps I would rather not know." It was not 
 she who said that. Long generations of Pridmores and 
 Colthursts had suddenly taken charge and had answered for 
 her. 
 
 It was a tone he had never heard her use, not even at the 
 dinner party at which she had discussed the question of di- 
 vorce. It was almost as if she had hit him a blow and yet 
 without intending to deal one. By this time he had grown 
 so dazed and frightened that he had begun to lose his head. 
 
 "The woman I married was not respectable, and that was 
 why I didn't tell you." 
 
 She drew away from him a little. It was quite an in- 
 voluntary action, but he felt it like a knife in the flesh. In 
 sick desperation he floundered on, suddenly losing touch with 
 all the small amenities of speech and manner he had so pain- 
 fully imposed upon himself. Moreover, he realized the fact 
 with pangs that were almost murderous. There were notes 
 from the Blackhampton gutter beginning to strike through 
 his voice. 
 
 "You don't know what my life has been," he said. "You 
 don't know where I started from." 
 
 Again she made that involuntary movement, almost as if 
 she felt that the mere tone was defiling her. 
 
 "You must let me tell you ... let me tell you all, if you 
 don't mind. It'll help you understand." 
 
 "I would rather you didn't." Again the Pridmores and 
 the Colthursts were speaking. 
 
 He looked at her with a wildness that made her shiver. 
 An intense pity for this man had suddenly begun to do battle 
 with the Colthursts and the Pridmores. There was some- 
 441
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 thing in those eyes, as there always had been, that was al- 
 most beyond her power to meet. 
 
 "I never had a chance," he said, holding her in thrall 
 with the voice she no longer recognized as his. "I've been 
 handicapped out of the race. I'm going to tell you, Mary. 
 It's not that I want your pity ... I ask more than that. 
 It's more than pity will bring a sailorman like me into port." 
 
 A kind of defiance of himself and of her had entered his 
 tone. His words seemed to open a vein in her heart. She 
 had a great compassion for this man, but with all her strength 
 of soul, with all her independence, she knew and felt that 
 voice had already told her that the facts of his life were 
 going to prove more than she could bear. 
 
 In a dogged way, with many of the tricks of speech and 
 manner of former phases of his life, which he had sloughed 
 as a snake its skin, and had now reassumed in the stress of 
 overmastering agony, he told her all. He spared her nothing, 
 not even his comparatively recent knowledge that his father 
 had been driven to commit a murder, which in Henry Har- 
 per's view accounted for the price the son had had to pay. 
 Nothing was spared her of Auntie, of the police, of the night 
 on the railway, of Mr. Thompson and the Old Man, of the 
 Margaret Carey and the Island of San Pedro, of Ginger and 
 Blackhampton, of the first meeting with Klondyke, of the 
 first meeting with Edward Ambrose, and, finally, an account 
 of his fall into the clutches of Cora Dobbs and how he made 
 the horrible discovery concerning her on the night of their 
 own first memorable meeting at the dinner party in Bury 
 Street. 
 
 Some insane demon seemed to urge him on. In spite of 
 the look of horror in her eyes, he told her everything. Some- 
 how he felt it was the only reparation he could make to her 
 for being as he was. 
 
 "Klondyke gave me my first start," he said finally. "He 
 442
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 knows nearly as much as you except about that woman 
 but he's stood to me all through. I don't ask your pity. I 
 admit I deceived you, Mary, an' I done wrong, but it warn't 
 because I didn't want to do right. I got to pay for it, I can 
 see that. I dare say it's right, but I'll only say . . . and 
 this is final . . . Enry Arper, whatever "is father done, don't 
 deserve not a half, not a quarter of what's been done to him." 
 
 She had to hold on by the table. Something was stifling 
 her. There were things in this elemental soul which the 
 Pridmores and the Colthursts might once have known, but 
 for long generations had forgotten. 
 
 She dare not look at him. An abyss had opened. She 
 simply couldn't face it. 
 
 Somehow he knew that. It needed no words to tell him. 
 Everything was lost. The mariner could never hope to come 
 into port. Again that horrible sense of rage came on him, 
 which a few hours age had overthrown him in his interview 
 with Edward Ambrose. It maddened him to think that he 
 had been allowed to get so far along the road and that a 
 subtle trick had defeated him when the goal was actually in 
 sight. 
 
 Yet even at the last there was just one thing, and only 
 one, that stood to him : if it was still possible he must be a 
 man, a gentleman. He knew this woman was suffering 
 cruelly, and he owed it to her and to his friends not to pro- 
 fane the God she worshiped. There was no God in heaven 
 after all, it seemed, for Henry Harper, but for her, who 
 had not the stain of a father's crime upon her, it was a differ- 
 ent matter. 
 
 As he stood not three paces from her, clenched and in- 
 coherent, fighting not to strike her with the sudden awful 
 blasphemies that were surging to his lips, he knew nothing 
 of what was passing in her mind. Had he known she would 
 have had his pity. All that her progenitors had stood for in 
 29 443
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 the past had suddenly recoiled upon her. All those entries 
 in Burke it had been her pleasure to deride, all the politicians 
 and the landed proprietors, all the Lady Sophias and the Lady 
 Carolines, all that flunkyfied reverence for concrete things of 
 those generations of the Pridmores and the Colthursts, which 
 had so long affronted her high good sense, were now having 
 thiir word to say in the matter. 
 
 She had pledged her help to this man if ever he asked it, 
 but now she found that help was not hers to give. Said the 
 tart voice of her famous Aunt Caroline, it is not to be ex- 
 pected, my dear, of a sane Christian gentlewoman. Think 
 of your father, my dear ! By some strange irony, Mary Prid- 
 more suddenly thought of him, that admired and bewhiskered 
 servant of a generation which allowed his friend Bismarck 
 to steal Schleswig and to murder France, but paid itself the 
 tribute of building the Albert Memorial; the distinguished 
 servant of a generation that had denied reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic to its Henry Harpers and had turned them bare- 
 foot into its Blackhampton gutters. 
 
 Many things were coming home to the heart of Mary 
 Pridmore in the awful silence of that room. She was no 
 more to blame for the long line of her fathers whose govern- 
 ing abilities were commemorated in the England of the six- 
 ties than was their victim, Henry Harper, in whose bruised 
 body and tormented soul had been commemorated his moth- 
 er's murder. She was numb and dazed now she had heard 
 his story, but she had nothing to give him. 
 
 The truth had come to him already. "Now, Enery, you 
 must be a man and bear it," said the voice of Auntie, wheez- 
 ing in the upper air. Well ... if his flesh and blood would 
 only let him he must be a gentleman as long as he had the 
 honor to converse with a real Hyde Park lady who believed 
 in God . . . that was all he knew at the moment. If there 
 was a spark of manhood in him he must hold on to that. 
 444
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Miss Pridmore." . . . He was able to pull himself to- 
 gether in a way that astonished even himself. ... "I see it's 
 all over with me and you. I'll never be able to get through 
 without your help. I'm fair done in. But I don't blame you. 
 An' I just want you to say you don't blame me, an' then I'll 
 quit." 
 
 She couldn't speak. Aunt Caroline in a hoop and elastic- 
 sided boots was simply imploring her to behave with dignity. 
 
 "Say you don't blame me, Miss Pridmore, an' then I'll 
 quit. It's not reelly my fault about my father." He laughed 
 a little, but she didn't hear him. "I'm sorry, though, about 
 the Mariner. If we could have brought him into port, you 
 and me, Miss Pridmore, there'd been nothing like him out- 
 side the Russians. However . . . say I'm not to blame . . . 
 and then I'll quit." 
 
 She was unable to hear what he was saying. 
 
 "Won't you, Miss Pridmore? I can't bear you should 
 think I've played it low down. If I could ha' told you afore 
 I'd ha' done it ... you can lay to that." 
 
 It was not a voice that she knew, and she could not answer 
 ft, 
 
 "Well, I'm sorry." 
 
 Suddenly he took her hand, and its coldness startled him. 
 
 "I'll say good-by," he said with a sort of laugh. 
 
 Aunt Charlotte primly informed her niece that Mr. Har- 
 per was taking leave. 
 
 "Oh," she said. "Good-by." 
 
 Without venturing again to touch the hand she offered, 
 he stumbled headlong out of the room and down the stairs. 
 He took his hat from a table in the hall and let himself out 
 of the front door before the butler could get there. He 
 closed the door after him with a sharp bang it was a door 
 with a patent catch and could only be closed in that way 
 and as he did this and the sound re-echoed along Queen 
 445
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Street, the lamp in the right-hand corner of his brain sud- 
 denly went out. 
 
 By the time he came to the end of the street it had grown 
 very dark. And as he turned a corner and found himself in 
 a street whose name he didn't know he was unable to see 
 anything. And then all at once he realized that Aladdin's 
 lamp was broken in a thousand pieces, and he gave a little 
 wild shriek of dismay. The savage hunted eyes of Mr. 
 Thompson were gazing at him from under the helmet of a 
 passing constable. 
 
 The trolls had got him. 
 
 Nothing could help him now. It had grown so dark that 
 he couldn't see anything, although it was hardly seven at 
 present of an evening in June. He almost shrieked again as 
 he heard the sniggering voice of Auntie ascend above the 
 gathering noises of the town: "Now, Enery, you must be a 
 man and bear it." 
 
 He didn't know where he was now amid the maze of the 
 little-frequented streets of Mayfair. He had lost his way 
 and he couldn't see. He was blind already with an ever 
 growing darkness. He was losing all sense of time and place. 
 But the voice of Auntie was ever in his ears, exhorting him, 
 with that shrill and peculiar snigger of which she never 
 seemed to grow weary, to be a man and bear it, as he stum- 
 bled on and on into the night. 
 
 II 
 
 ONE afternoon about a week later, Edward Ambrose 
 rang up No. 50, Queen Street, on the telephone to 
 ask if Mary was at home. In reply he was told by 
 Silvia that Mary had gone for a few days to Greylands to 
 the Ellises, but her mother would be very glad if Edward 
 446
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 would come and see her as she wished particularly to have a 
 little talk with him. Edward certainly did not wish par- 
 ticularly to have a little talk with Lady Pridmore at that 
 moment, but there was no way out of it. Thus in no very 
 amiable frame of mind he drove to Queen Street. 
 
 Lady Pridmore was alone in the drawing-room. She re- 
 ceived Edward with the grave cordiality that she reserved 
 for favorites. 
 
 "It is very nice of you to come, Edward. Ring for some 
 tea." 
 
 That was like her, when she knew quite well he never 
 took tea. 
 
 "We are dreadfully worried about Mary." 
 
 That was like her again. She was always dreadfully wor- 
 ried about something, although nothing in wide earth or 
 high heaven had the power really to upset her. But Edward 
 for some reason was not feeling very sympathetic towards the 
 Lady Pridmores of the world just now. 
 
 "And we blame you." 
 
 "Me?" 
 
 "Yes, we blame you. It was you who first brought that 
 young man, Mr. Harper, to the house." 
 
 This was not quite in accordance with the facts. Still, 
 there would be no point in saying so. Ambrose, therefore, 
 contented himself with asking, "Well, what of him?" with 
 as much politeness as he could muster in order to cover a 
 growing impatience. 
 
 "It is not well, Edward, it is very far from well," said 
 Lady Pridmore aggrievedly. "As I say, we are all dread- 
 fully worried. Mr. Harper turned up here again one day 
 last week, the first time for a year. And he saw Mary 
 alone. Silvia and I were out at dear me ! but it doesn't 
 matter " 
 
 "Quite so," murmured the courteous Edward. 
 447
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "Otto met him coming in as he went out." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well, as I say, Mary and Mr. Harper were together 
 a long time and somehow I'm sorry to tell you this she has 
 seemed quite ill ever since." 
 
 Edward expressed regret. 
 
 "And Dr. Claughton strongly advised a change." 
 
 "I am very sorry," he said gravely. 
 
 "She is so overstrung that she has had to have sleeping 
 drafts. It is by Dr. Claughton's advice she has gone down 
 to Woking." 
 
 "But what reason have you to connect all this with Mr. 
 Harper?" 
 
 "The evening he saw her she didn't come down to dinner. 
 Now I would like you to tell me a little more about about 
 Mr. Harper. You brought him here, you know. Otto says 
 he is not altogether . . . Do you think that?" 
 
 "Had I thought for a moment that he was not a desirable 
 acquaintance I should not have brought him here." This was 
 a shameless begging of the question; it was not he who had 
 brought the young man there. 
 
 "I'm glad to hear you say that," said Lady Pridmore 
 with feeling. "That is exactly what I said to Otto. I wish 
 you would tell me all you know about this Mr. Harper." 
 
 "I am afraid I can only tell you one thing about him." 
 
 "Yes," said Lady Pridmore encouragingly. 
 
 "At the present moment he is very dangerously ill. The 
 doctors take a very grave view of his case." 
 
 Lady Pridmore was grieved to hear that, but it fully con- 
 firmed what she had surmised. 
 
 What had she surmised? 
 
 "I am quite sure that something rather dreadful took place 
 here a week ago." 
 
 Ambrose felt that was most probable. 
 448
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "I wish you would tell me, Edward," said Lady Pridmore, 
 "what in your opinion it was that happened." 
 
 The retort on the tip of Edward's tongue was, "How the 
 devil should I know!" but fortunately he didn't allow it to 
 pass. He contented himself with silence. 
 
 "I want to see Mary most particularly," he said, after a 
 pause. "I think I'll send her a telegram to say that I am 
 coming by the first train tomorrow." 
 
 "Do," said Lady Pridmore. "That will cheer her up." 
 
 Ill 
 
 HE sent a telegram as he returned sadly to his rooms. 
 He was in a miserable frame of mind. Somehow 
 he was hating life, but he was now fully bent upon 
 one thing, and no peace could be his until he had done it. 
 
 After dinner came an answer to say Mary would be very 
 glad to see him. He sat smoking endless pipes, until he 
 realized that it would soon be too late to go to bed if he was 
 to catch an early train. 
 
 On arrival at Woking, Mary was at the station with her 
 friend's car. She looked ill, he thought, but she seemed very 
 glad to see him. At first they found little to say. Indeed, 
 it was not until they had decided tc use a fine morning in 
 walking to Greylands, had sent on the car and taken to the 
 road, that they were able to talk in the way they wished. 
 
 "I suppose you don't quite know why I've come?" said 
 Ambrose. 
 
 "No, I frankly don't," said Mary, "but at least, Edward, 
 it is always very, very good to see you." 
 
 Ever since she could remember, he had ranked as the chief 
 of her friends, and that accounted, perhaps, for a certain 
 attitude of mind towards him. But in all the years they had 
 449
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 known each other, in all the hours they had spent in each 
 other's company, never had they seemed so intimate as in this 
 walk together. And there was a very clear reason why this 
 should be so. Never had each felt such a need of the other's 
 perceptiveness. 
 
 It was not for him to ask what had happened a week ago 
 at that last interview in Queen Street. But she told him 
 voluntarily. 
 
 "I had promised to help him," she said, growing pale at 
 the recollection. "And he came to me and told me all ... 
 all the facts and the circumstances . . . things that not I 
 and not you, Edward . . . could ever have guessed." 
 
 "You were not able to do what he asked?" 
 
 "No, I simply was not. I simply couldn't. I meant to 
 help him. I wanted to. Perhaps . . . perhaps I ought to 
 have ... but . . . but it was an abyss he showed me ... 
 you don't know . . ." 
 
 They walked on in silence a little way. 
 
 "... A year ago, I made a pledge. And he counted on 
 it. I think that is why he told me the whole dreadful story. 
 Had I not been a coward, I should never have . . ." 
 
 "You judge yourself too hardly. He aked too much." 
 
 "It should not have been too much. I ought to have been 
 able to help him. At least ... I ought not to have sent 
 him away as I did." 
 
 "Assuming it were not too late, do you think you could 
 help him now?" 
 
 "But it is too late." She was evading the question. 
 
 "It is not the view I take myself. I saw both doctors 
 yesterday, and they have very little hope of a recovery. But 
 you and I are not bound to agree with them." 
 
 "What can we do ... in the face of such an opinion?" 
 
 "We can have faith." 
 
 "But the doctors?" 
 
 450
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "It is a purely mental case. The mind is the key of the 
 whole matter." 
 
 "Yes, I know ... I know." 
 
 "No doctor, however expert, can ever say anything posi- 
 tively in regard to the mind, provided the brain is not dam- 
 aged." 
 
 "Isn't it bound to be?" 
 
 "They do not say that . . . and there is our hope. It is 
 a special case. We must always remember this man is dif- 
 ferent from other people. It is my firm belief that it is in 
 your power to save him. The view may be entirely mistaken, 
 but it is my own personal conviction." 
 
 A new Edward Ambrose was speaking. Here were a 
 strength and a force which until that moment he had not 
 known how to show her. It may have been that the occasion 
 had never arisen, or perhaps the conventional timidity of 
 his kind had never permitted it. 
 
 "I I don't altogether understand," she said, faintly. 
 
 "You took away his belief. And I ask you to give it him 
 back again." 
 
 She walked dully by his side, striving as well as she could 
 to represent to herself the strange words he had used in a 
 form she could accept. 
 
 "You do understand, Mary?" 
 
 "Isn't it too late?" 
 
 Tormenting fears were again upon her. 
 
 "It may be. Certainly the doctors think the balance of 
 probability against it. But I firmly hold that such a view 
 is not for those who know this poor sailorman. I cannot 
 help thinking that no one is allowed to get so far along the 
 road in the face of such paralyzing odds without there be- 
 ing still some hope of putting the thing through." 
 
 They stood in the middle of the road, looking at each 
 other.
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 "I ... I think you are right. You understand him so 
 much better than I." 
 
 "That we can neither of us believe." He spoke with a 
 queer laugh. "But if I am asking you to give too much, you 
 mustn't blame me. You have always taught me to ask too 
 much." His voice tailed off in the oddest way. "But this 
 time I don't ask for myself." 
 
 She was crying. "I was never the woman that you 
 thought me. Or that I thought myself." 
 
 She stood a moment, the tears running down her cheeks. 
 
 "You must go to that poor mariner," he said, with odd 
 suddenness, trying now for the first time in all the long years 
 to impose his will upon hers. "He has a very wonderful 
 cargo on board. You and I we owe it to each other and 
 perhaps to future generations to see that it comes into 
 port." 
 
 Such a tone was startling. She had never heard it be- 
 fore. A new and very potent voice was speaking. 
 
 "There is no time to lose." This was Edward Ambrose 
 raised to a higher power. "Every hour is going to count. 
 If it is still possible, go and offer him a refuge from the 
 storm." 
 
 She stood irresolute. But already she had begun to waver. 
 A masculine nature in its new and full expression was turn- 
 ing the scale. 
 
 "If we go back at once," he said, "there will be time to 
 catch the twelve o'clock train from Woking. You can tele- 
 graph to your maid. And Catherine Ellis will understand. 
 Or you can write and explain." 
 
 Either the call was stronger than her weakness, or she had 
 underrated the forces within herself. For suddenly she 
 turned round and they began to retrace their steps along the 
 road they had come. 
 
 Good walking gave them time for the midday train to 
 452
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 Waterloo. Upon arrival at that terminus, shortly before 
 one, they drove to a nursing home in Fitzroy Square. 
 
 Permission had already been obtained by Ambrose for 
 Mary Pridmore to see Henry Harper. It was felt that her 
 presence at his bedside could do no harm, although there was 
 very little hope that it could do good. At any rate, the nurse 
 who received them made no difficulties about admitting her. 
 Ambrose took leave of Mary on the doorstep in the casual 
 rather whimsical way he affected in all his dealings with her, 
 and then drove heroically to his club. 
 
 IV 
 
 THE Sailor lay breathing heavily. He was still just 
 able to keep on keeping on. But in spite of the dark- 
 ened room and the blindness of his eyes, he knew at 
 once that she had come to him . . . the incarnation of the 
 good, the beautiful, and the true . . . gray-eyed Athena, with 
 the plumes in her helmet. 
 
 His prayer had been heard, his faith had been answered. 
 He knew she had come to him, this emanation of the divine 
 justice and the divine mercy, even before her lips had 
 breathed his name . . . that name which through eons of 
 time, as it seemed, he had been striving to fix in the chaos 
 that once had been his brain. 
 
 IT was rather less than a year later that Edward Am- 
 brose, seated in his favorite chair in his rooms in Bury 
 Street, knocked out the ashes of a last pipe before turn- 
 ing in. He had already given a startled glance at the clock 
 453
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 on the chimney piece, and had found it was a quarter past 
 three in the morning. 
 
 The truth was he had been oblivious of the flight of time 
 for a good many hours. And the cause of this lapse was a 
 bulky bundle of manuscript which was still on his knees. It 
 had come to him from abroad with a letter the previous day. 
 And having read the last page and having cleared the debris 
 from his pipe, he yet returned the pipe, empty as it was, to 
 his mouth and then read the letter again. 
 
 It said: 
 
 MY DEAR EDWARD, 
 
 In praying you to accept the dedication of what to you 
 and none other I venture to call an epic of that strange and 
 terrible thing, the unsubduable soul of Man, I make one 
 more demand on your patience. I feel that only a very brave 
 man could father such a thing as this poor mariner. It is not 
 that he has not proved to be a stouter fellow than could ever 
 have been hoped. To say otherwise would be black ingrati- 
 tude to those who sought him out on the open sea and brought 
 him safely into port. If his book is more than was to have 
 been expected, it is yet less than the future promises now that 
 other new, or shall we say recovered worlds, are continu- 
 ally opening to the gaze of the astonished sailorman as with 
 Athena by his side he roams the shores of his native Ithaca, 
 
 Drink deep, O muse, of the Pierian spring, 
 Unlock the doors of memory. 
 
 If this prayer is heard, on a day Ulysses may proclaim in 
 native wood-notes w r ild the goodness of the living God, and 
 hymn the glories of a universe that man, ill-starred as he 
 may be, is powerless to defile. Even if such power is not 
 granted to the mariner, he will yet have a happiness he had 
 not thought possible for mortal men to know. And she who 
 had Wisdom for her godmother, I hope and pray she is also 
 happy in self-fulfillment. If this is a fatal egotism, I am not 
 afraid to expose it to you. The mariner is not so blind that 
 454
 
 THE SAILOR 
 
 he does not see that it is a more developed, a far higher form 
 of our species who sits with his old pipe in his favorite chair 
 in Bury Street, St. James', frowning over this ridiculous 
 letter. You and she begin where he leaves off. What vir- 
 tue both must have inherited! And who shall dare to say 
 how terribly a man may be punished for lack of virtue in his 
 ancestors. 
 
 We send you our blessing and our affection. 
 
 H. H. 
 
 Having reread this letter, Edward Ambrose turned again 
 to the concluding pages of the manuscript still lying upon 
 his knees. The clock on the chimney piece struck four, but 
 no heed was paid to it. The empty pipe was still between 
 his teeth when finally he exclaimed: "Yes, it's wonderful 
 . . . very wonderful. It is even more wonderful than I 
 had hoped." 
 
 He then took the pipe from his mouth and found the stem 
 was bitten right through. 
 
 (13)
 
 STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY 
 
 GENE STRATTON-PORTER 
 
 May be had wherever books are srtd. Aak for Bromt & Dunlap's list 
 MICHAEL O'HALLORAN. Illustrated by Frances Rogers. 
 
 Michael is a quick-witted little Irish newsboy, living in Northern 
 Indiana. He adopts a deserted little girl, a cripple. He also as- 
 sumes the responsibility of leading thg entire rural community up 
 wai d and onward, 
 LADDIE. Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer. 
 
 This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The 
 Btory is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, 
 but it is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love 
 affairs of older members of the family. Chief among them ia that 
 of Laddie and the Princess, an English girl who has come to live in 
 the neighborhood and about whose family there hangs a mystery. 
 THE HARVESTER. Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs. 
 
 " The Harvester, " ia a man of the woods and fields, and if the 
 book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of thii man it would 
 be notable. But when the Girl comes to his " Medicine Woods," 
 there begins a romance of the rarest idyllic quality. fc 
 
 FRECKLES. Illustrated. 
 
 Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in 
 which he takes, hold of life ; the nature friendships he forms in the 
 great Limberlost Swamp ; the manner in which everyone who meets 
 him succumbs to the charm of his engaging personality ; and his 
 love-story with " The Angel " are full of real sentiment, 
 A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST. ^Illustrated. 
 
 The story of a girl of the Michigan woods ; a buoyant, loveable 
 type of the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and 
 kindness towards all things ; her hope is never dimmed. And by 
 the sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from 
 barren and unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage* 
 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW. Illustrations ia colors. 
 
 The scene of this charming love story ia laid in Central Indiana 
 The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing 
 love. The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of 
 nature, and its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all. 
 THE SONG OF THE CARDINAL. Profusely illustrated. 
 
 A love ideal of the Cardinal bird and his mate, told with delicacy 
 and humor. 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
 
 KATHLEEN NORRIS* STORIEg 
 
 May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Cresset & Dunlap's list 
 
 MOTHER. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. 
 
 This book has a fairy-story touch, [counterbalanced by 
 the sturdy reality of struggle, sacrifice, and resulting peace 
 and power of a mother's experiences. 
 
 SATURDAY'S CHILD. 
 Frontispiece by F. Graham Cootes. 
 
 Out on the Pacific coast a normal girl, obscure and lovely, 
 makes' a quest for happiness. She passes through three 
 stages poverty, wealth and service and works out a 
 creditable salvation. 
 
 THE RICH MRS. BURGOYNE. 
 Illustrated by Lucius H. Hitchcock. 
 
 The story [of a sensible woman who'keeps within her 
 means, refuses to be swamped by social engagements, lives 
 a normal human life of varied interests, and has her own 
 romance. 
 
 THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE. 
 
 Frontispiece by Allan Gilbert. 
 
 How Julia Page, reared in rather unpromising surround* 
 ings, lifted herself through sheer determination to a highei 
 plane of life. 
 
 THE HEART OF RACHAEL. 
 frontispiece by Charles E. Chambers. 
 
 Rachael is called upon to solve many problems, and in 
 working out these, there is shown the beauty and strength 
 of soul of one of fiction's most appealing characters. 
 
 Ask for Complete free list of G. 6- D. Popular Copyrighted Fictiot 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORF
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FAC1LTI 
 
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