Produced by Al Haines










[Frontispiece: "Mr. Harper was completely out of his depth." (Page
267.)]






THE SAILOR


BY

J. C. SNAITH


AUTHOR OF "ANNE FEVERSHAM," "BROKE OF COVENDEN,"
  "ARAMINTA," ETC.



ILLUSTRATED BY

W. A. HOTTINGER



THOMAS LANGTON

TORONTO

1916




COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


"Mr. Harper was completely out of his depth." . . . . . . _Frontispiece_

"A nigger with rings in his ears came forward with a light."

"'I was a bit on last night,' she said with well assumed humility."

"'Mary,' he said, 'do you remember your words eleven months ago?'"




THE SAILOR



BOOK I

GESTATION

I

A large woman in a torn dress stood at the gate of a rag and bone
dealer's yard.  The season was November, 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 of 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 garment which left his thighs half naked.

His face was transfigured with terror.

"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 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.  Overcome 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 wall.  She lashed at it again and again, cursing
horribly.  But it was no use.  Her prey had escaped with one savage cut
across the heels.  She continued 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.  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 unbalanced in body and mind, but a voice inside him
said suddenly:

"Chance it!"

Hands and knees instinctively gripping as hard as they 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.




III

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 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.

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.  Presently 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."

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 took 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.




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
crumble 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 burrowed 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.

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!

"Kim up ... you!"

It was the voice of the police.

He turned over with a whimper and lifted up his head, 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 something 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 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' Blackhampton.--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 shunter's feet.




V

"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 breakfast," said
the Foreman Shunter with an air of asperity.

The odd thing was that both subordinates seemed silently 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 recollections 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.

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 something 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 legs.

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
5:40 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."

"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 boiling."  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 nothing 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."

"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 Foreman 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 blowing 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 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 I'll do."

In order to carry out this resolve, she went into the scullery, 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 forms of their activity
were still hovering round the outskirts 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 knickerbockers 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 Shunter, 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 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 don'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.

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 Foreman 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).  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
regular 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 complete 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 Hendren was 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, he came regularly once a
week to engage the Foreman Shunter in a game of draughts.  It was also
Mr. Hendren's custom 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. Hendren'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 already."

"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?"

"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 reputation 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, politely "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 resemblance to his arboreal ancestors of the largest and most
terrifying species.  His distinguished relation, upon introducing 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, 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 expectorating 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. Hendren'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 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 forefinger 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 assault 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 question
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 mention 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."

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 fearfully 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 extravagance 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 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. Thompson, 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 suddenly 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 magnificently 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 felt
that to express misgiving after that would be in bad taste.  Mr.
Thompson promised that he would see the old man in the course of the
morrow, 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 was 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 already.  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 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 with 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, tartly.

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 overcoat."

She also made up a bundle of odds and ends for the boy: a flannel
shirt, two much-darned pairs of drawers, a rather 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.




X

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 ventured 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 Blackhampton.

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 figuratively.

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 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--extremely 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 that 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
breathe 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 murderer.  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 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 presented 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 great 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 that this man could work his will 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. Thompson'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. Thompson's
arithmetic.  He moved off at once, but proceeded to 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 wonder 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."

[Illustration: "A nigger with rings in his ears came forward with a
light."]

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 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
between 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 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 appetite.  The biscuit
was so hard that it seemed to require a chisel, and the meat so salt
and tough that any expenditure of jaw power was unlikely to prove a
profitable investment.  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 already 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 conversation.
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 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.

Sleep was not to be thought of.  Something was racing and 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 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 Chinaman'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 the same 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 was creeping through a tiny chink in the manhole, and he
knew that it was morning.  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 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 could to prevent his head from going round.

Luckily, for the time being, the Chinaman took no further 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 was 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 catholic 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. Thompson was the chief.  Henry Harper's breath
was taken away by the sight of this wolfish looking lot.  He had seen
distinguished 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 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 remember 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 whomever 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
conclusion 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 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 turning 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 beating 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 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 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 Atlantic.  She was flung and tossed to all points of the
compass; 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 Old 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.  Dagoes are not reckoned much as seamen, the
Dutchmen were sullen and stupid, none of the Yankees and English was
really quite white.  The seas were like mountains; often during the day
and night all available hands had to be literally 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 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 helpless,
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 frantically 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.  Perhaps 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.

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 they 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 dashing out his life.
Mercifully the third sea that came, towering 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 been drinking heavily.  Mr. MacFarlane,
Mr. Petersen the third mate, and some of the others were also standing
by.

The boy heard the Old Man threaten to put Mr. Thompson 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
institution; 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 without 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 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 perhaps 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.  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 divided 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 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 gloriously; 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 world 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 burden 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 without a cloud
in it!  He had never seen any sky at Blackhampton 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 circumstances.  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.  However, 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 gorgeous; there was no wind to
speak of; the sea became so smooth that it might have been the West
Norton and Bagsworth 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, 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. MacFarlane said they were cutting straight into the tail
of a 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 feeling 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 something 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 pressure that held him down.  Then
it was he felt a new kind of terror.  This was more than physical, it
seemed beyond the 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 outside 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 overboard, and he was drifting
about the world, a strange unbelievable 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 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 experience 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 presence 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 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 members 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
was 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 inefficient 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 particularly 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
discourse 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 drinking 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 theological discussion with Mr. MacFarlane after
supper.  The second mate was very full of Biblical lore.  His
interpretation of Holy Writ was not always identical with that of his
superior officer, and being a Scotsman and a man of great parts and
character, he never temporized or 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 drinking 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 are a good nine days
from anywhere."

Mr. MacFarlane, however, maintained with polite firmness--land to
starboard not being a theological matter--that 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 clambered on
deck.  A little while afterwards he returned in a state of odd
excitement, accompanied by Mr. Thompson, 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 listening eagerly.

"Only me and the ship's bye," said the Old Man, his voice falling
lower.  "We lived six weeks 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 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 followed 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.




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 understand, 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
luckily 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 Chinamen--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?"

"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 understand 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 'll do with him on the Island o' San Pedro."

"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 got to keep out o' the trees.  My advice to
Sailor is--are 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, impressively.  "Never
knowed the truth o' it, though."

"True enough, Mr. Thompson," said the Old Man.  "Sirpints 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 a bullock as easy
as it swallows a baby."

"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.




XVI

Sailor didn't sleep that night in his bunk in the half-deck but lay in
the lee of the chart-house looking 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 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 subject 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."

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 powerful 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?" expostulated 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 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.  During 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 himself familiar with the yards.  All through the good weather
he 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 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 investigate.  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.




XVII

After many days of ocean tramping with an occasional 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 sea 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 sixteen--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 at 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, 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 aggressively 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 it
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 maintained 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 Klondyke's coming aboard, Sailor, who was very
sharp in some things, became mightily interested 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 personal 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 wondering 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 themselves for having gone up at
all.  "But it's quite easy to learn, you know."

Sailor gasped in astonishment.  He had always been led to believe that
to learn to read and write was a task of superhuman 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 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 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--Henry.  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 determined 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:

  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 anywhere.  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 Klondyke.

"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."

"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 punching 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 birthday 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 scrapping 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 thickened with
barely any provocation at all, whereas he never seemed to get within a
yard of Klondyke's physiognomy unless 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 nature which almost craved for a licking from
the finest chap 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 discovery, 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.




XIX

Klondyke was ten months an ordinary seaman 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 bought the earth at five per
cent. discount for cash and carried 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 morning, 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.
Klondyke then broke the news to Sailor that he had just taken a fancy
to walk across Asia.

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 wonderful 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 derelict.  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 _Margaret
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 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 torment.
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. Thompson, 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 bitter, 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 miserable; it brought too vividly to his mind the
true friend who had gone out of his life.  For the rest of his time
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 carefully disposed
about his person.






BOOK II

TRAVAIL

I

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 Tuesday, 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 seaman 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 answer 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, interminable street was an
imposing public house, painted a magnificent yellow.  He knew that
bread and cheese and a tankard of beer, which he so greatly desired,
were there for the asking.  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 Shanghai had
never been happy, and had sometimes ended in disaster.  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 disdain 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 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 favorably impressed.  "What can I do for you?" Miss
Burton inquired.  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 impressive, he answered precisely as Klondyke
had at the Bodega 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.  Moreover, 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 silver coins from
his amazing trousers, out of which he solemnly chose a Spanish
fourpenny.

"Haven't you got anything English?" she asked, bursting suddenly into a
laugh.

Not a little disconcerted, the Sailor began to struggle 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, when 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 ægis 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 carefully 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 with 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.

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."

"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 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 seaboard 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 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 several 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 discourage 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 syllable 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. 1, 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, sympathetic, smiling, and magnificent.
Therefore he took courage to knock at the door of the next house which
also had 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 highest
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.

"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
advance.

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 waterside variety, but
the sight of such affluence was almost too much for her.  Money was her
ruling passion.  She went 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 nothing 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 human 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 stomach like the icy
blade of a knife.  He had tasted fear in many forms, but this kind of
stealing coldness was something 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 downstairs.  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 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 shivering 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 entered the room; a thing he could neither
hear nor see.  It was a presence of which he was made aware by the
incandescent 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 whatever 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.

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 grappling 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 was 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 necessary.  It was only an
old woman after all.




III

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 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.

The dirty dawn of a wet October day stole on the young man's eyes as he
was attempting a doze on the patched counterpane 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
lingering 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 forever 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 Wednesday
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 human 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 humane.

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 hemispheres 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 H23, who always
expected a wrong un at that hour of the morning.  Upon the spur of this
thought, the bobby suddenly 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 crossing 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.

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 morning 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 anything 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, 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 was valued at half a sovereign.

"Rich aunt," said the proprietor of the stall, with respectful 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
Yankee nickel, now a Frenchman, now a Dutchman, now a Mexican
half-dollar, now a noble British quid.  For several crowded and
glorious minutes, Ike and the most influential 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 managed to discharge his liability in
coin current in the realm of Great Britain.  Then, in common with the
entranced Ginger, 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
solemn 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.

"See here, Vanderbilt!" said Ike at last, yielding reluctantly 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 social 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 desperation 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 ungraceful, adding a slightly modified ritual for
the benefit of Ginger, 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 healthy basilisks, 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 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."

"Have ye so!"  Ginger was surprised and 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 curiosity was
increasing.

"Still foller 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 _Margaret 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 Antcliff and Jackson, Limited, and also
at Hull and Grimsby.  Ginger, having told the Sailor tersely to wait
outside, entered 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 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 accomplishment 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 something 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.  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 ægis 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,
fortunately.

Ginger laid such emphasis upon the point that the Sailor accompanied
him across the street to Grewcock's emporium, 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
Pearson'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
advantages 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 convenient; 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.




V

The Sailor paid six-and-six for the belt of Russia leather, and in
Ginger's opinion that was as good 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 bedroom 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 landsman of experience
until he got a bit more used to _terrier firmer_.

So much was the Sailor impressed by Ginger's disinterestedness that at
six o'clock that evening, when his first day's work was done, he
brought his gear from the wharf to No. 1, 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 attitude 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 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
altogether lost, so now, after such a meal, the mere sight of Ginger
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 clock 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 ministered so much
to Ginger's social position as that every evening of his life, Sundays
excepted, his own newspaper should be delivered at No. 1, Paradise
Alley.  It was impossible for the Sailor to forget his early days in
spite of the 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 Klondyke; that was, in
regard to money itself.  He did not throw money about in the way that
Klondyke did, nor had he Klondyke'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 Wednesday 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.

Ginger withdrew his mind from a consideration of the Police Report and
the latest performances of the Government.

"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."

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 intellect.

"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 stockingless through the icy mud of
Blackhampton, bawling, "Result 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 remarkable 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.  "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 bounce.  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 modesty.

"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.

"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 disturbed.  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 historic 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 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
astonished 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 début 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
stalwart 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 to 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 to the humblest
intelligence that he was a sailor and nothing else, but Ginger knew the
value of such an announcement.  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 impressiveness
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, 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 début on Cox's Piece.
The brilliant form of his protégé 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 evening'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 Mercury_ across to the Sailor after he had done with
it himself, 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.

On the evening this first happened the Sailor had intended 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 impression 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 reading 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
knowledge, 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 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 pretense was kept up the worse it
would be.  But it was impossible 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 sympathy, which in circumstances of ever growing
difficulty 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 uncomfortable to be driven to play it after supper every
night.  Something must be done if the esteem, perhaps the friendship,
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 bordering upon ecstasy.
At the instance of Ginger, who was the captain and treasurer of the
club, the chairman of the committee, and also one of its
vice-presidents, the Sailor had been invited that afternoon to keep
goal for the Isle of Dogs Albion.  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 afternoon'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?"

"Do about what?  'Otspur hasn't half punctured Liverpool, I don't
think."

"Do about learnin' what you've forgot?"

"Come again, pardner.  I'm not Old Moore.  Manchester 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 continued 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 vibrations of
depth and power in his voice, "you'll go far.  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 afternoon, 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
Blackhampton any Saturday for your club to look at if they care to give
us both a trial with the Rovers' second team.  We 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.


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, Blackhampton.  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 hairdresser in
the High Road, who had the honor of his patronage, 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 thoroughly 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 austerity.  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 tonight 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, 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 passages 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 vehemence.

However the vehemence had done the trick.

"I would learn," said the landlady curtly.

"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 retired 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.

"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 behavior.  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 waiting 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 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?"

Stern 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 the 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 of 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 suddenly 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."

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 sweaters you can get at Tallow's might turn out a good
investment."

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 Waxworks."

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.




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 Ginger 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 dignity.

"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 affirmative.

"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.

"_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.  "_I_ 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 protégé 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 it acrost him now."

Ginger looked around magisterially; the cognoscenti concurred 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 all he's got.  Now mind you punch a hole
right through him."

It was a rather disappointing scrap.  But for this it 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 Metropolitan Police, who in the person of a certain
Constable Y28 promptly moved on the combatants while they were sparring
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 Y28 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 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
enthusiasts, 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 Ginger 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 overcoat 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 heightened by a
previous evening's haircut and a close matutinal shave.

Those of the faithful who had assembled on the up platform to wish _bon
voyage_ to their club mates on their journey to High Olympus were
rather staggered by the sight of 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
platform 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's Weekly_, that romance had 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 Blackhampton 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 _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,
everythink 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 was 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 person he saw, who actually opened the door of their
compartment, 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 seeing what the
policeman did.  He felt subconsciously that fate was laughing at this
obsequious figure in uniform opening 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 importance.

There was a little commotion near the beer engine.  "Play up, Rovers,"
cried an enthusiast in a chocolate and blue necktie.  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 situation 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
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 Ginger.  "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 introjuice 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 Nonesuch
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 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.




X

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 hoarding 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 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.  Understand?  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 problem of
Ginger's universe, namely and to wit, could he contrive 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 managed to "deliver the goods," that life
is hell for the under dog, and that it is given to no man to measure
the exact distance between the cup and the lip.

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 importance 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 prestige 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 different matter from the
first team of the Isle of Dogs Albion.  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
chocolate and blue brought a sudden gush of tears to his eyes.  And in
a queer way, he felt a better man for shedding them.  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 sacrilege.  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.  Greenness is a grave misdemeanor, swank a deadly sin.
Fortunately 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 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 understand 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 holding it in his hand.

"Into it, yer 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 football was played.  In the view of the ruling
powers of that old and famous club, who sat in the center of the
grandstand, 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 sat 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 consideration of supreme capacity.  Mr. Augustus Higginbottom was
the chairman of the club.

"Who have we got keepin' goal?" said Olympian Zeus, 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 committee 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.
Gets down to the ball."

"Oh, well stopped, young un!" shouted an adventurous satellite, in
order that an official decree might be promulgated 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 impressed by the
information that he began to chew the end of his cigar.  "Ops about,
don't he.  I tell you what, Albert"--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 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 goalkeeper 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.

A ragged urchin, who had paid his threepence with the best of them and
had therefore a right to express his opinion 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, walking on air.

"Buck up, Ginger," piped the shrill urchin, as the tense and 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 proletariat.

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 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 wherever 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 comforter and a brown
bowler hat, had given far fewer opinions 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 Higginbottom, "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-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 which 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 directors 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.

"Jukes," he said with brutal directness, as he chewed the end of his
cigar, "we 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 impressiveness of Mr.
Higginbottom was very carefully calculated--"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 Higginbottom, "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 you are promisin', although not justified as you are at
present.  Now what do you say?"

"Nothin' doin'," said Mr. W. H. Jukes, before the goalkeeper 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 politeness 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 sensation.  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 removing 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 conversation for the
first time.

"We've allus played for the same club, we lodge together, 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?"

"Yep," said the Sailor.

There followed a final consultation between the chairman of the club
and his fellow committee-men.  But only one conclusion to the matter
was possible.  The Blackhampton 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 wonderful deeds at the instance of a power beyond himself.
As for the sequel, involving a farewell to the wharf of Antcliff 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 might be a combination of
anything you chose to call it, but there it was; two untried men had
imposed their personalities 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 accompanied 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 opinion, 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 maintained a "slavey" and did little of the housework
herself, apparently never soiling her well-kept hands with anything
menial; also she had an undoubted gift of conversation, 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.

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, because 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 of 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 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.  Together 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 physical 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 remembered 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 Blackhampton,
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 his 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 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 overcoat with 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 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 standing 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. 1, 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, scrap 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 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.  Suddenly 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 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 thinking 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 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 understanding 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
when 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 had a good mind to make himself comfortable indoors 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 uppermost.

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 contemptuously 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 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 connoisseur, 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 Récamier, not that Henry Harper
knew any more about Madame Récamier 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 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 unconsciously, 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.

"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 elements of the
three r's was a disgrace; it was bound to prejudice 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 doubtful 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 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 anythink 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.

"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 will 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 Ginger 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 before 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, sometimes he sat up late to read; every day he received
instruction 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 information.  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 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 present, 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 _Evening
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 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, miserably 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 second 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.  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 not a young man
of emotional ardor, but the Sailor was a chap you couldn't help liking,
and in his heart Ginger believed 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 redoubtable 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 knew that this game was to make or mar him.  All was
at stake.  He had felt as he lay sleepless throughout the previous
night that the issue would try him too highly.  It was the penalty of
imagination to be slain in battle before the battle came.  But when the
hour arrived and he stood in the goal, he was able after all to do his
bit like a workman.

In his own way he was a fighter.  And genius for goalkeeping 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 England 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 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 Dictionary--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 judgment--and there
could 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: (1) 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.

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, whose thoughts were a
little rueful.  "That Ginger's mustard.  He plays better an' better in
every match."

"Yes, Gus, he does," said Mr. Satellite 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 Sailor would
be chosen for England in the match against Scotland.

These were dream days for Henry Harper.  He was performing 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 performed 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 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 success, 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 thrill 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 Duckingfield 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 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 matter;
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 convinced 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 household 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 nothing 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 Minstrels."

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 without it.

The Sailor did not at present aspire to a liberal education, 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
romantic attitude towards the supremely difficult science of numbers
that Henry Harper persevered with the multiplication table.  At first,
however, the difficulties were great.  But his grit was wonderful.
Early in the winter mornings, 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 Dictionary, he read the "Pickwick
Papers" far into the night, with a little of the Bible for a change, or
the Blackhampton _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 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 of 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 Border, Ginger was a terror for his size and
never knew when 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 ventured on Shakespeare; he was not ripe for it
yet, said Miss Foldal.  Shakespeare was poetry, and the crown of all
wisdom, 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 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 much 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 Shakespeare 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
Duckingfield 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 Blackhamptonian there was never any
question as to their respective 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 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
Blackhampton was the home of the game.

Moreover, there was one historic meeting between these neighbors which
was always a _causa foederis_ at any gathering 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 possible 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 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 Saturday 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 Blackhampton 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 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 surrounded 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 Pleasance 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 Excelsior Prize Brass Band fought nobly but in
vain against fifty thousand 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 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 assisted 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 seething 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 Blackhampton Constabulary regarded from a
strategic distance with the utmost detachment, a cry of "'Ere they
come!" was loosed 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 goalkeeper 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 crest of the wave.  They
had not lost a match since September 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.  Every 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 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 thousand of whom were already hooting with delight at
receiving 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 matter," 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 while
the enemy's center forward, supine and attended by the club trainer
with a sponge and a cordial, recovered his.  Nevertheless, the referee,
a cock-sparrow 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 besought the referee.
"Turn him off.  Dirty dog!"

"Good old Ginger!  Played, Ginger!  Good on yer, Ginger!" proclaimed
thirty-five thousand stalwart Blackhamptonians.

Had Ginger received marching orders thirty-five thousand
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 would have been a goal down at that sorely needed interval.

As it was, when, at the end of forty-five minutes' pounding, 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
reasonably 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 individual 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 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 affectionate 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 inexorable 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 ruthlessly, 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 full
back now came up to see what was the matter, a singularly 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
past 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, Alexander MacFadyen by name,
late of Glasgow Caledonians, and many times an international player.
There was no better 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.  All
the same, he must not go to Dinkie, as his puir fulish 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 Shakespeare and the
football reporter for the _Evening Star_--could do justice to.  "I'm
waitin' for ye, Dinkie, ma laddie," said Alexander MacFadyen, with
Dinkie coming on and on, his dainty feet twinkling to the tunes of
faërie.  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 venture.  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 thousand souls the
finest goal seen on Gamble's Pleasance within the memory of man.  In
the considered judgment of the 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 indescribably 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 triumph into dire disaster.

Some maintain it was the rain alone which caused the débâcle.  None can
deny that the ball was greased by Jupiter's shower.  But even that fact
cannot cover all that happened.  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
gathering 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 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 dominated 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 farthest 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 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 mortal 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 responsible for its actions.
There was a fierce set-to between a handful of good men, with help from
six mounted constables, and many hundreds bereft by an excitement which
at that moment made them little better than savages.

"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 dispersed, 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 incomprehensible defeat, that the crowd had
made an infuriated attack on Harper, the goalkeeper, and in the blank
space reserved for the latest news, it said that in deference to public
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 Foldal, "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.  Mention of it was
clear proof that Mr. Harper's present condition 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 landlady.  She could not get the look of those
eyes out of her brain.  Only once had she seen such a look in the eyes
of any human being, and that was in those of her Uncle Frederick 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 believed 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 instinct 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 coming 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 terrible thing after all.

At last Miss Foldal opened the door of the bedroom.  A 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 landlady.  "'Ere's my board and lodging, 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.  Moreover, she knew it
was vain.  There was a look in Mr. Harper'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.




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 happened he must not meet Ginger.

He didn't know where he was going; he had neither purpose 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 compartment.  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.

It was clear from the demeanor of the old lady that she was inclined to
regard the intruder with disfavor.  However, 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.  Moreover, 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 were 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 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 was 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.  Presently 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 Blackhampton.  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 cold in spite of their hot water bottle, which was also cold,
and was great negligence on the part of the railway company.  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 startings were endless;
the night grew very cold; the old lady, gathering her fur cloak around
her, resettled 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 white striped phantoms 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 opposite 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 station, 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 which he wore
round his waist--a proceeding which seemed to stimulate the curiosity
of his fellow traveler in the highest degree--and paid it over without
a murmur.  The official 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 ministrations 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
atmosphere around him.  This was a different place from Blackhampton;
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 Blackhampton, 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.

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 immensity 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, because 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 himself 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 endless; it was a waste of bricks and
mortar.  Even Liverpool 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
had 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 towering 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 Blackhampton Lyceum the first play of his
life, "Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp."  He had sat in the pit, Dinkie Dawson
one side of him, Ginger the other.  He had now his own wonderful lamp.
It was glowing and burning, a mass of dull fire, in the right-hand
corner of his brain.  It was a talisman 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 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 feet; bushes of furze and a
clean smell of earth enveloped 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 overmastered 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 Britannia, of even that
blood-stained visage of which he could still catch glimpses in the
darkness.  It was a stealthy distrust 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 unsteadily.  And as he
did so he saw the cold, cold light of the morning paling the tops of
the distant trees.  He began to move forward again.  He would have to
keep going somehow if he was not to be overtaken by darkness and
eclipse.  Whatever he did, he must hold on to his identity.  Whatever
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 important 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 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' course," said the cabman, "it ain't Buckingham Palace, it's no use
purtendin' it is."

"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 cabman had said, but these
were solid advantages, and the 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 hairbrush 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 butter, 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 delightful articles dealt with in a manner of such sacerdotal
delicacy.

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 muffin with a kind of apostolic pleasantness,
which somehow recalled to Henry Harper the Reverend Rogers and a
certain 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, moreover 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
Sybarite.  Yet it was a suggestion rather than a resemblance.  This was
a kind of composite of Klondyke and the Reverend 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 measured 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 had also the rather unacademic habit of quoting dead
languages 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 knowledge 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 audience 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
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
manner 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 College, 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
circumstances 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 immortal past!  I hope I make myself clear."

Mr. Horrobin was not making himself at all clear, but 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 believe 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 Arbiter was whole
worlds away from Miss Fordal.

"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 commercial.  And why?  Because
there is no absolute canon of literary style existing in the world.  It
is one labor of Sisyphus the more for a man to say this is Petronius to
a world 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 aristocracy, 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 wonderfully better for his day's rest, and much
fortified by the society of Mr. Esme Horrobin.  Friendship had always
been precious to Henry Harper.  There was something in his nature 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 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 gentleman'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 decayed 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 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 different kind.  His tone seemed to express the
unusual when he asked the young man if he had any particular form of
occupation 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 minutes' hard
thought inspiration came.  Its impact was almost 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 allowed 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 reading 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 Horrobin 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 toasting 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.

"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 bookseller.  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 sealing wax from some unsuspected purlieu of himself;
a prelude 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.




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.  Booksellers 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 acquaintance 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. Horrobin would
discourse so charmingly upon the classics in general 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.  In the mind of his bookseller, Mr. Horrobin stood for
Culture 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 opening 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 with a regard for the things of the mind, gave his
assistant a chance "to improve himself" in accordance with Mr.
Horrobin'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-reading, 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
chapters.  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
the odd thing was that only the first sentence of the first volume 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. 120."  Careful and voluminous notes upon Bulrushes, 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.

Sometimes Mr. Rudge had a feeling of loneliness, notwithstanding 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 a 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 faërie 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 surprising 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 subject.  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 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. 260-284, 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 undertaken.

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 Blackhampton, dire tragedy as his flight must
ever be.  When he had been a fortnight with Mr. Rudge he tried to write
Ginger a letter.

To begin it, however, was one thing; to complete it another.  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.  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 expected that "a nine pence to the shilling" creature like
Mr. Henry Harper would provide an exception.




V

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
presently 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 pondering 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 contribution 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_, 2_s._ 9_d._, 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 commonplace.  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.  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 suspicions 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 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 grip 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 possible 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 volumes, 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
misspent hours could have been used for a further enrichment 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 incomplete "Adventures of
George Gregory" with his own experience.  The strange tale grew at the
back of the genie who 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 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
fellow 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 finding
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 fragments of their talk as they passed by.  All of
a sudden there 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 oncoming 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 faultless
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 upon Henry Harper to go after
his friend and declare himself.  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
followed 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 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
disappointed, 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 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 was 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 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 specimens 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 interested 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 anything by it.

"Why write it then?" she asked with acrid surprise.  Why 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!"

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 personality which caught the young man's eye was her boots.
These were 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.  At least it
says it is.  And if it isn't, I get my money back, don'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.

"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 experience.  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 expression 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."

It was a little surprising that a creature so fashionable should own an
aunt so much the reverse.  Even Mr. Harper, who had hardly begun to get
a sense of perspective, felt the two ladies were as wide asunder as the
poles.  Not of 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 gentlemen, cooked their meals,
supervised their bachelor establishments, 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 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 pastry.  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 Charing 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.




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 of Miss Dobbs.  He
was a very shy young man, and in regard 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 author 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 remarkable 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 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 continuance 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 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 misgivings, 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 Chapter 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 naïf
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 written it?"

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 reproachfully.  "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 able 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.

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 Smith_ 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 solemnly promised that he would send it
to the _Rotunda_ himself, 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 Magazine_.  Why he chose that
periodical in preference to the _Rotunda_ 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 material 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 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
himself 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 inconsequence 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 destroyed 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 _Brown's 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 following:


12B, 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 impossible 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 meantime 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.




IX

In order to pay a visit to 12B, 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 Victorian epoch to the most gifted and representative minds
of the present.  Mr. Ambrose himself was a critic of some celebrity;
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
12B, 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 importance of the
matter by appearing on the scene, clothes brush in hand, in order to
give a final touch to his toilet.  No discredit must be done to 249,
Charing Cross Road.  An unprecedented 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. 12B in every chaste
external was entirely worthy of its local habitation.  After a much
bemedaled commissionaire of incredibly distinguished aspect had ushered
the young man into the front office, he was received by a grave and
reverend signior in a frock coat whom Mr. Harper instinctively 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 terrible 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 appearing to do so; and then he said, in
a slightly changed tone, as if a theory previously formed had been
confirmed, "I am sure you 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 earnestness pathetic and
naïf.  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 12B, 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 perhaps 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
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 power.  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 wonderful 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
competitor 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 congratulate _Brown's Magazine_.

The editor took a cordial leave of his strange visitor.  "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 anything 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 gentleman.  He was not brought
literally to earth because he suffered 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 charity to cover his sins, because up till then,
Tuesday, September the fifth had been the day of his life.




X

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 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, which she 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 oppressed 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 situation.  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 _lèse-majesté_.
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 illustrations--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 Magazine_ 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 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 necessary 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 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 penetrate 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 hopeless that it seemed it would
never come right.  After infinite pains had made him as presentable as
a very limited wardrobe 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
remarkable bandeau, somehow gave a maturity to her appearance 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 beautiful, 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 thoroughly 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. 106, 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 confusion 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 flattered 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. Thackeray.  The way in which Miss Bonser
produced a private case and offered it to him after choosing a
cigarette for herself, somehow reminded him of "Vanity Fair."

"Harry don't smoke, do you, Harry?" said the hostess, 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 anything 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 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. Harper, 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 little 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.

"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 indiscreet 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.

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 valuable experience to have the _entrée_ 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
comments 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 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 _Brown's_ 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 you can and let us have another 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 appreciation 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 courageously forth to 12B, Pall Mall.

The bemedaled commissionaire and the bald-headed gentleman had no
terrors for him now.  Had he not walked and talked with Zeus himself?
These Olympian sconce bearers could not eat him, and there is always
comfort in that reflection 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 convinces in spite of itself, which is almost the surest test
of genius, although that's a big word.  But you've a great faculty.
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?  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 quantities.  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 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
countenance.

"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.  It was Sunday
afternoon, and these three ladies were awaiting the arrival of Mr.
Henry Harper in a rather speculative frame of mind.  The previous
Sunday Mr. Harper had not appeared.

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 mentioned 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 hours 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 the 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 travel.

"I hope he is not going to give us a miss in baulk now 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 reasoned optimism.
"He's here now."

In fact, at that moment a mild assault was being delivered 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 embarrassment.  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 was 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. 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.
"However, 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 fiddled 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 contrived to efface the tragic incident was
admirable.  She poured out gracefully a cup of tea for Mr. Harper, a
terribly 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 forthright "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 understand.  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 daughter," 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 listening to a dead
language.  This may have relieved his mind 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 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 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-denying
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.

"Yes, dear," came the thrilling whisper of Miss Bonser.

"That's true."

"We are telling you this, Harry," said Miss Press, "because we think it
is something you ought to know.  You think so, don't you, dear?"

"I do, dear," said Miss Bonser.

"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.

"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 that'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 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 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 themselves 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 Blackhampton, and put him into a bath; the second time was in 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
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. Harper?  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.  However, it's never too late to
learn."  Her laugh seemed to strike him.

"I didn't mean to mislead you," mumbled the young man, who felt like a
trapped and desperate animal.  Yet when 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 living 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.
Moreover, 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. Ambrose 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 formerly, 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 attention 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,

Why 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.


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. 106, 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 understood 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 of 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,
although, 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 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 liked
Sargent; she spoke of values, composition, brushwork, draughtmanship,
and it was really a pity that Mr. Harper 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 somehow 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 awkwardness 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 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.  Somehow, 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 memories 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 ambition.  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 present 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?"

"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 important.  What you
want is somebody with a head for business 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 selling 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 writing 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 believe, 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 underrated 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 in tactics might be fatal.
However, she was about to receive 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 Society"--W. M. Thackeray, in whose works he
was now taking 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.

"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 regard 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 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 forehead.  "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 upbringing.

"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.

"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 with 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 suddenly 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 who 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.

"And now, Harry---"  But Cora suddenly stopped in the very act of
advancing upon him.  He had read her purpose, 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 approved 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 married?" 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 emotion.  "Goodness gracious me ...
why, she's not respectable!"

"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 unfortunate 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."

"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 happen 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
feeling 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 associations 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 willing 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 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 advantages in such a course.  In the first
place, only one banking 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 common
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 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 general 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
uninterrupted morning's work.

In the afternoon, Cora generally went forth to visit her friends.  And
as she showed no desire for Harry to accompany 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
restaurants, 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 sometimes 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 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 swimming 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
arithmetic, 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 Chinaman, 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 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 important, because he felt it was
the only one he would ever really know.  As for this world of Cora's,
it was quite outside 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 morning 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 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 using 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, unaffectedly proud of being the sponsor of "the new
Stevenson"--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 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 friends, 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 wherever he went, had one very sinister quality.  It
had a power of making him morbidly 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 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 took
several wrong turnings, had twice to be put right by a policeman, 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 accordingly 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.

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 admission 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.  Nervously 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 discreet 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 atmosphere as a
flower responds to the sun.

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 delightful 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 gentleman 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 Horrobin 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 was not quite able to see the point of it, Mr.
Ellis-Barrington 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 distinguished shade.  Alas, poor Horrobin!"

All three--Mr. Ellis, Mr. Barrington, 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 excellent 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 Trimalchio."

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 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 monster 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 charming 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 used by Mr. Esme Horrobin.
It was pretending to a knowledge 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 question 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 himself.




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 confounded by the reception given to "Dick Smith" by the
public 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 exaggerated, as it no
doubt had, in accordance with a generous custom of giving a newcomer a
fair chance.  Still, the 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 the story to reach the world.

One of the first fruits of this new craving for exact knowledge 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 resist all attempts
to cast them off, and when finally pinned down and exposed to public
censure could easily evoke a second 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 Ambrose 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 happen in every country in the
world, but the commission which solemnly justifies them on the ground
of indisputable common 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 concerned 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 the 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 proceedings 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. Thompson, the mate of the _Margaret Carey_.

There could be no doubt it was he.  Alexander Thompson 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, 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 Edward 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; thereupon 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 dominated by Mr.
Thompson.  He learned from the newspapers that the mate of the
_Margaret Carey_ was condemned to death, and that he awaited the last
office of the law in Dalston 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 reason 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 savage, 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 wonderful lamp in his brain had taught him already
that he knew nothing about whole stellar spaces in this strange cosmos
that he, the thing he called himself, inhabited.  Moreover, 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 involved 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 concerned.  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 something 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 foresaw that he must come to
dislike them more and more.  It 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 manner and then of conduct.

Disaster was foreshadowed by several quarrels.  None of these were
serious, but they showed the inevitable end towards 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."

Harry'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 good 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.

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 provided, and then go on with his work to what hour he chose,
instead of being haled abroad at the heels of a superfashionable 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 Museum, the London Institution, the South
Kensington Museum, 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, he 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 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 Circus.  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 between 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 unwilling 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 inducing 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
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, before 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.

[Illustration: "'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.

"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 gentleman, 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."

"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 meantime, 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. Ambrose, 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.  Edward Ambrose, who
had had no small share in bringing it about, and whose discriminating
friendship had made it possible, 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 certainly burst upon the
world as a full-fledged literary curiosity.  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 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 possess 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 membership, seemed a rare bit
of byplay on the part of Providence.  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
session, if he felt he would get the least good out of it.

In response to a basely utilitarian suggestion, Henry Harper 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 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 parqueted 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
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 inglorious.  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, Lætitia Longborn Gentle, Memphis
Mortmain 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, listening 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 properly, 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.  Fortunately 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 Carinthia in the
charmed ear of Mr. Cuthbert Rampant, "that 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 difficult 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 retired 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 question 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 Buzzard, 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 somebody 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!  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 experience 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 Winchester and New College in the person of Mr.
Cuthbert Rampant 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, although '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 delightful 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 suddenly 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 Paradine's Hotel and had
managed to find a way into Regent 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
artillery, 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 speaking 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 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 deportment.  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 assailing 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 auburn 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 Harper, his vibrant sensibilities still astretch
from an afternoon 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 deportment 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 manner 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
(remembering his grammar in time)--into Society.

Madame Sadleir's smile was maternal.

"Why, certainly," she said in the voice of a dove.  "Nothing easier."

The young man felt reassured.  He had not thought, even in his moments
of optimism, that there would be anything 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?"

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 diligence 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 Mtdame 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 recommended 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 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,
proceeded 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 recommended.  If you are diligent,
it may be possible to graft a modified Oxford upon it, but I am afraid
it would be premature to promise even that."

This was disappointing.  But, after all, it was to be foreseen.  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 Institution,
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 Harper 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 Tuesday.  This he accordingly did; and being under no
obligation 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 these 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 capable of delving deep into spiritual
experience, and of rendering 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.

"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 science 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 (two and two make five) on the other.  Well, if it won't
bore you" ... "Go on, go on!" cried the meeting, not out of politeness
merely, since all felt the fascination of the unconventional and
childlike personality of James Thorneycroft....  "I will give you in as
few words as I can the experience 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 old
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 think out of
some quixotic notion he had of reforming her.  Certainly he stuck to
her long after he ought to have, because 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 cruelest 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 obligation 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 afterwards I could
never think of him without a feeling of inward 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 and took my hand and he said, and I
can hear his words now, 'Mr. Thorneycroft, 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 Thorneycroft.




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 unadorned 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 experience 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 telling.

This clear conviction brought no shame to Henry Harper.  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 criticism 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 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 disastrous 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.

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 helping 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 observation, 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
conscientious teacher, was now making use of the new knowledge.

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 discretion.  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.

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 to 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 common, 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 everything, from the heart outwards.  It began to hurt him
more and more to be in her company in public places.  Sometimes 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 striving 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 he 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 whenever
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 increasing effort on the part of the neophyte to rise
to the measure 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 unaffected 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
fiancée ... 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.

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 insisted
upon being told for what purpose they were required, she flew into a
tantrum.

In Cora's opinion, there had been too much dining already 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 which she was not
invited a pretext for it.

"I see what it is," she said with ugly eyes.  "Your lawful 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 breathing 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, reading 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 cornered.

"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 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 tonight 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
impossible to leave him in the lurch without a shadow of excuse.

At last, with a sense of acute misery, he came to a decision, 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

I

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 persuaded
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 smoking 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 remembering a former
excursion to Bury Street which was yet quite 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.  However, 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 machine 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 portals 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
Princess 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 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 entrance 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.  Edward 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 Pridmore.

"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 surging 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 to be coming back to him
out of the years, out of the measureless Pacific.  A Hyde Park lady was
speaking in Bury Street, St. James', but at that moment he was not in
London, 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 feature; this was the unforgettable girl he had seen with
Klondyke 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 your 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, I 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 mine."

"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 anything 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 defiance.  "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 discovered, let her hand rest on his arm very
lightly, yet with a 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 people 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 perfectly sincere, a frankly outspoken
admirer of "The Adventures of Dick Smith."  She had never read anything
like it; moreover she was quite fearless and nobly unqualified in her
admiration of that fascinating tale of adventure, 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 happiness.

"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 imitation 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 sailorman, 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 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."

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 remembered that she was
being escorted downstairs by a distinguished man of letters.

"Do you press the question?"

"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
splendid 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.




III

"My friend," said Edward Ambrose, as he helped the last departing guest
into his overcoat, "I suppose 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 Klondyke'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 invited 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 Harper returned on
foot to King John's Mansions.  He did not go by a direct route, but
chose Regent Street, Marylebone 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 enchanted 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 middle 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 péri, 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 railings 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 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 hearthrug, his hands in his pockets, in a
rather contemptuous attitude, 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 superhuman, 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 _Margaret 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."

"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 were 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 understand 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."

"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?

As the feeling of amazement at his own folly deepened, a gust of fury
swept through him like a storm.  An overmastering 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 maëlstrom.  He was in the grip of a
terrible power ... a power beyond his control.  It was not merely that
she had entrapped 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 reinforced 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, unhappy, far-off things had overwhelmed them.

"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 beyond 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 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.




V

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.  Indeed, 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 breakfast.  Another knife and fork,
Portman.  Take off your overcoat."

The young man had no wish to do so.  He remembered 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 unlike his own, "I
want you to consider this a secret between 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 concealing 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 without 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 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 managed?

"One feels it ought not to be very difficult in the circumstances,"
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 Ambrose.  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.

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 ordinary 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 wisdom 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 are 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 the 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 the second time
that morning Henry Harper told his strange story.

"And you never guessed!" was the solicitor's brief comment 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 your 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 what it costs."

Mr. Mortimer continued to draw very spirited pictures on his blotting
pad.

"Don't you advise it?" asked Edward Ambrose.

"Yes, I do, if we can get one.  But in the special circumstances, 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.

"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 imagination?"

"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."

"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 Ambrose.  "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 destination.

"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.




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 Edward 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'Gorman Price, K.C.M.G., a former governor of the
Bowerman 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 respectability which hovered round
his rooms was a little portentous, 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 impressiveness.  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 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 _ménage_ 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 emotion.  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 respectable
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 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 reconstruction 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 physical state was not alone the cause of his sleeping
in a way that had not been possible at No. 106, King John's Mansions,
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 marmalade awaited him.  He sat near the
pleasant fire, with his back to the enlarged photograph of the late Sir
O'Gorman Price, K.C.M.G., the last portrait taken by Messrs. Barrett
and Filmer, of Regent Street, and at Brighton, before 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 established 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 carefully each beloved volume on the well polished writing table
with its green baize top, and then arranged them with precision 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 carefully 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 new 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.

"I thought I'd like to see if you had moved in in good shape," said his
friend, as he entered briskly and cheerfully.  "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 young 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.

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 predominant 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 thoughtfully provided him with a plate and
a small table to put it on, because this creature of swift intuitions
somehow felt that he had not quite got his drawing-room legs at present.

"You have a whole volume of questions to answer presently, Mr. Harper,"
said Mary, "so take plenty of nourishment, 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.  Before 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, _chargé 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 Pridmore.  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 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 reasonable 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 godfather, 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 the theory
that it was mere Victorianism for Burke or anyone 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 anything."

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 undoubtedly 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 entrée to the great world and had cut a very
decent figure in it, according to the memoirs of the time, should have
such obsolete 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
possible.  Therefore, it made her relationship to Klondyke a crowning
wonder.

"I shall always think, Mr. Harper," said Lady Pridmore, "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 Harrow, but I certainly think they might have played him
against Winchester for his bowling.  Had they done that, I am convinced
it would have steadied him, and then, no doubt, he would have settled
down and have followed in the footsteps 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 merriment 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.  Somehow 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."

"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 naïveté, 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 his tea.

"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 budding 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 anything, but people who knew Ted Ambrose, for instance,
thought a good deal of them.  Personally, the Prince believed in style.
Stevenson, for example, wrote like an educated man.  This man's writing
in its crude force had somehow the air of the lower deck.  Ambrose said
there was greatness in it, all the same.  Personally, the Prince
preferred 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.




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 Pridmore considered this
rather odd young man, had many questions 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.
Perhaps 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.

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
herself.  The Sailor had soon begun to interest her very much, and
instinctively divining something of his handicap, she wished 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 communion 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
seascapes, 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 numbered 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 the blessings which attend acquaintance with
plutocracy.

The box was able to accommodate six persons, and those 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 Ambrose, Mary, and Silvia had heard it so often
that it was almost 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 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 sailormen 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 herself 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 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 and wisdom in the way he had done.  Moreover
his pen no longer flew across the paper.  It took him a whole week to
do 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 relentless 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 Greylands, 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 conventional Miss Pridmore, that it was not so much
the sailorman 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 naïveté 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 Pridmore!  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.

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 breakfast.  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 differently,
and that is the great charm of your long letter.  This is a very stupid
one, but I won't apologize for it, because 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.


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 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
Greylands, 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, breakfast, 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, suffering 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 birds were in full
choir, the trees were near the pomp of midsummer, the sun of June made
a glory of the distant hills.  It was a noble world.  Long before the
Sailor came to Greylands 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 Greylands, 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 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 knowledge 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 his
intercourse with religious things had been confined to two tea and bun
fights with addresses to follow, under the ægis of that light of his
youth, the Reverend Rogers, at the Brookfield 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
whatever 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 unknown 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 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.




X

More than one long and golden hour the Sailor wandered 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 Blackhampton, 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 declare 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 wetness.  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 bracken rose waist high, but wherever it ran he followed
it, now through the close-grown woods, now across furzy common 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 milestone 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 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 fearfully every
morning with the most devoted and courageous persistency; also he
remembered that one of Auntie's temporary 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."

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.  It will be a tiresome evening for you, but Edward is coming
and Jack Ellis, whom we both like, and his fiancée 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 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.
Foremost 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 quarterdeck, 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 entertainment
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
thinking 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 Edward
Ambrose, who, however, countered him quietly and with frank amusement.

"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 evening was over, it was tolerably certain that the
President of the Board of Supererogation would identify himself
publicly 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 himself, 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
expressed upon the matter.

"We are in for it now," whispered Mary to the Sailor, who was eating
the entrée, 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
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 breathless 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 on any such basis.

"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 contest the point.
But this was a subject upon which she felt so strongly that she could
not leave it in such a very unsatisfactory 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.

"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 Ambrose 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 interesting family, I
always think."

They walked on in silence for a little time, and then the Sailor 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."

"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
narrowness, 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, wistfully.

"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 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 Mariner," 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!"




XIII

In the meantime, the Sailor was walking home to Brinkworth Street,
distributing largesse.

"Poor, broken mariners," he said, when his pockets 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 overpowered 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 sailorman" 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 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 enfolding 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 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 offended?"

"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 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 returning 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."

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?" 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_ Pridmore 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 Un_, 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 Klondyke.  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 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 thoroughly, 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 absolutely last in any boiled-shirted assembly.  The Prince,
however, 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 Pridmore 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 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 _soigné_ and altogether
handsome.  By some miracle 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 comrade 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 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 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 immortal 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.

"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"--Klondyke 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 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."

"Of course they were," said Klondyke.  "That's human nature.  But you
had rotten luck ever to come to sea.  However, 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 sickness 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 suppose 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."

"Yes, he's a wonderful chap," he kept muttering at intervals.  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 according 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 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, anyway."

"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 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.

"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 conviction, 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 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 decided 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 heart, 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.

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 Pridmore 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 interference.  He had a sincere affection
for a brave-spirited man; for Mary he had long cherished something more
than affection; 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 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 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
expression 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 everything.
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 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 distance.  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 friendship 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 beyond gravity.  There was a shadow
upon a face that hardly seemed to have known one in all its years of
shelter and 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.




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 symbolical 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 sailorman 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."

"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 themselves 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.

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 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 stroll 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 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 fingers
met the last touch of hers.  And then she was gone, and he was gone ...
and then a bleak, dull blindness 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 city.  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 carried 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.

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 inhuman 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 something 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.

"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
reinforced 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 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.  Suddenly 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 said, "so I thought
I'd come and see you.  What's the matter?"

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 further
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 why you should.  Now, Sailor, what do you
say?"

In spite of all the trolls there were in the universe, Klondyke 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."

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 Harper
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 another 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 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 knowing so much of the facts of his life, he felt his grit
was quite extraordinary.  But now it had begun to seem that this
gallant 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 working 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 hypothesis did not account for the morbid
and rudderless state he was in now.

Nevertheless, the Sailor had still a little fight left in him.  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 reputation with his pen, who in speech and
bearing could pass muster 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 makeshift 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 Sailor knew that, too.
For one thing, he would be wasting precious time he could not afford to
lose; again, now that fighting 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
Liverpool.  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 familiar 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, also, if his will
endured, he would never see her again.  It seemed the only course after
that last failure.

John Milton was with him, also the Bible and Shakespeare 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 Lexicon.  With the aid of this, he spent many an hour in
quarrying 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 forgotten 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 familiar 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, perhaps 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 struggling he discovered that
Aladdin's lamp was extinguished 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 demons 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 unkindness.  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 had done
nothing, or at the best very little, to heal the wound he bore.

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 Northumberland Avenue,
trying to decide whether he should cross Trafalgar Square.  Once more
the old sense of disintegration 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 shirking 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 Magazine_.  Edward Ambrose gave
him a welcome that nearly brought tears to his eyes.

"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 emotion should have been underrated.

"Yes," said the Sailor queerly.  "It was rotten."

"You are looking splendidly brown and well," said Edward 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 thinking.  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 ... 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 Ambrose 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 mariner 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."

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, impassively.  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 perception told him that nothing
would be easier than for ill informed 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 between 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 sudden blind rage in
his face.




BOOK V

FULFILLMENT

I

"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.

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 resolve.  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 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 unnerved 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 Edward 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 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 between them now, except the memory of a secret which
somehow 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 confess 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 circumstances of his life.  Besides, so
high was the revulsion of feeling 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?"

[Illustration: "'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?"

"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, incredulously.

"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."

"You 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."

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 desperately.  "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 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 married."

"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 divorce.  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 involuntary 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 painfully 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 something in those eyes, as there always had
been, that was almost 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 Harper'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.  Somehow 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 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 ago 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 profane 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 different matter.

As he stood not three paces from her, clenched and incoherent, 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 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 their 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 expected, my dear, of a sane
Christian gentlewoman.  Think of your father, my dear!  By some strange
irony, Mary Pridmore 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 barefoot 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 governing abilities were commemorated in the England
of the sixties than was their victim, Henry Harper, in whose bruised
body and tormented soul had been commemorated his mother'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, wheezing 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.

"Miss Pridmore." ... He was able to pull himself together 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 outside 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 it.

"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. Harper 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
Street, the lamp in the right-hand corner of his brain suddenly 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 stumbled 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 would come and see
her as she wished particularly to have a little talk with him.  Edward
certainly did not wish particularly 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 received 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 worried 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 dreadfully 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.

"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 confirmed 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.

"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."




III

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 to 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 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 asked 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?"

"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 positively in regard
to the mind, provided the brain is not damaged."

"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 different 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 being still some hope of putting the thing through."

They stood in the middle of the road, looking at each other.

"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 before.  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 turning 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 telegraph 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 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 darkened 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.




V

It was rather less than a year later that Edward Ambrose, seated in his
favorite chair in his rooms in Bury Street, knocked out the ashes of a
last pipe before turning in.  He had already given a startled glance at
the clock 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
ingratitude 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 continually 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 wild 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 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 virtue 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.