mained in her forecastle now only Goodwin and one other, an
old seaman named Noble, a veteran who had followed the sea and shared
the uncertain fate of ships since the days of single topsails.

Noble was seated on his battered chest when Goodwin unhooked the
fo'c'sle door and entered. A globe-lamp that hung above him shed its
light upon his silver head as he bent over his work of patching a
pair of dungaree overalls, and he looked up in mild welcome of the
other's return. His placidity, his venerable and friendly aspect,
gave somehow to the bare forecastle, with its vacant bunks like empty
coffin-shelves in a vault, an air of domesticity, the comfortable
quality of a home. Save for brief intervals between voyages, in
sailors' boarding-houses, such places had been "home" to Noble for
fifty years.

Goodwin rehooked the door, and stood outside the globe-lamp's circle
of dull light while he took off his coat. Old Noble, sail needle
between his fingers, looked up from his work amiably.

"Well?" he queried. "Been havin' a hell of a good time uptown, eh?"

"That's so," retorted Goodwin shortly. "A hell of a time an' all."

The old man nodded and began to sew again, sailor fashion, thrusting
the big needle with the leather "palm" which seamen use instead of a
thimble. Goodwin, standing by his bunk, began to cut himself a fill
for his pipe.

"Ain't been robbed, have ye?" inquired old Noble.

In his view, and according to his experience, a sailor with money on
him ran peculiar risks when he went ashore. When Goodwin had been
"shanghaied" in San Francisco drugged and carried on board
unconscious while another man "signed on" for him and drew three
months of his wages in advance those who shipped him had omitted to
search him, and his money-belt was intact.

"Robbed? No!" answered Goodwin impatiently.

He lit his pipe, drawing strongly at the pungent ship's tobacco, and
seated himself on the edge of the lower bunk, facing old Noble. The
old man continued to sew, his hand moving rhythmically to and fro
with the needle, his work spread conveniently in his lap. But for the
rusty red of his tanned skin, he looked like a handsome and wise old
woman.

"Jim," said Goodwin at last.

"Yes?" The old man did not look up.

"There wasn't nothin' doin' ashore there," said Goodwin. "I just went
for a walk along the street, and then I well, there wasn't nothin'
doin', ye see, so I went into a sort o' mission that there was."

"Eh?