a sorry, hectic sham,
and found in the black bosom of the Great Mother solace and comfort!
Dear, lovely sea, man--half of every sphere, as far removed in the
sequence of your strong emotions from the painted fripperies of the
woman-land as pole from pole--the grateful blessing of the humblest of
your followers on you!

The mere sight of salt water did me good. Heaven knows our separation
had not been long, and many an unkind slap has the Mother given me in
the bygone; yet the mere sight of her was tonic, a lethe of troubles, a
sedative for tired nerves; and I gazed that morning at the illimitable
blue, the great, unfettered road to everywhere, the ever-varied, the
immutable, the thing which was before everything and shall be last of
all, in an ecstasy of affection.

There was also other satisfaction at hand. Not a mile away lay a
well-defined road--doubtless the one spoken of by the wood-cutter--and
where the track pointed to the seashore the low roofs and circling
smoke of a Thither township showed.

There I went hot-footed, and, much too hungry to be nice in formality,
swung up to the largest building on the waterside quay and demanded
breakfast of the man who was lounging by its doorway chewing a honey
reed. He looked me up and down without emotion, then, falling into the
common mistake, said,

"This is not a hostel for ghosts, sir. We do not board and lodge
phantoms here; this is a dry fish shop."

"Thrice blessed trade!" I answered. "Give me some dried fish, good
fellow, or, for the matter of that, dried horse or dog, or anything
mortal teeth can bite through, and I will show you my tastes are
altogether mundane."

But he shook his head. "This is no place for the likes of you, who
come, mayhap, from the city of Yang or some other abode of disembodied
spirits--you, who come for mischief and pay harbourage with
mischance--is it likely you could eat wholesome food?"

"Indeed I could, and plenty of it, seeing I have dined and breakfasted
along the hedges with the blackbirds this two days. Look here, I will
pay in advance. Will that get me a meal?" and, whipping out my knife,
cut off another of my fast-receding coat buttons.

The man took it with great interest, as I hoped he would, the yellow
metal being apparently a very scarce commodity in his part of the
planet.

"Gold?" he asked.

"Well--ahem! I forgot to ask the man who sewed them on for me what
they were exactly, but it looks like gold, doe