gone, we went below, and 'e chucked the bundle in 'is bunk. There was
only one chap down there, and arter spending best part o' ten minutes
doing 'is hair 'e nodded to us and went off.

Half a minute later Bill cut open the mattress and began to search
through the stuffing, while I struck matches and watched 'im. It wasn't
a big mattress and there wasn't much stuffing, but we couldn't seem to
see that money. Bill went all over it ag'in and ag'in, and then 'e stood
up and looked at me and caught 'is breath painful.

"Do you think the mate found it?" 'e says, in a 'usky voice.

We went through it ag'in, and then Bill went half-way up the fo'c's'le
ladder and called softly for Jimmy. He called three times, and then,
with a sinking sensation in 'is stummick, 'e went up on deck and I
follered 'im. The boy was nowhere to be seen. All we saw was the ship's
cat 'aving a wash and brush-up afore going ashore, and the skipper
standing aft talking to the owner.

We never saw that boy ag'in. He never turned up for 'is box, and 'e
didn't show up to draw 'is pay. Everybody else was there, of course, and
arter I'd got mine and come outside I see pore Bill with 'is back up
ag'in a wall, staring 'ard at the second mate, who was looking at 'im
with a kind smile, and asking 'im 'ow he'd slept. The last thing I saw
of Bill, the pore chap 'ad got 'is 'ands in 'is trousers pockets, and was
trying 'is hardest to smile back.

THE WELL

Two men stood in the billiard-room of an old country house, talking.
Play, which had been of a half-hearted nature, was over, and they sat at
the open window, looking out over the park stretching away beneath them,
conversing idly.

"Your time's nearly up, Jem," said one at length, "this time six weeks
you'll be yawning out the honeymoon and cursing the man--woman I mean--
who invented them."

Jem Benson stretched his long limbs in the chair and grunted in dissent.

"I've never understood it," continued Wilfred Carr, yawning. "It's not
in my line at all; I never had enough money for my own wants, let alone
for two. Perhaps if I were as rich as you or Croesus I might regard it
differently."

There was just sufficient meaning in the latter part of the remark for
his cousin to forbear to reply to it. He continued to gaze out of the
window and to smoke slowly.

"Not being as rich as Croesus--or you," resumed Carr, regarding him from
beneath lowered lids, "I paddle my own canoe down