d his
gold-rimmed glasses and eyed the delegate over the paper.
"Athletic sports? Not much in your line, I should say."

"No, sir;" and while the delegate bent his eyes a bright spot showed on
either cheek. He was a weedy, hollow-chested man, about six feet in
height, with tell-tale pits at the back of the neck, and a ragged beard
evidently grown on the voyage. "I'm only a collector, with the
captain's permission."

"I see." Mr. Olstein pulled out a sovereign. "I don't put this on
_you_, mind; I can tell a consumptive with half an eye. See here"--he
appealed to us--"this is just what we suffer from. You fellows with
lung trouble flock to a tepid hole like Madeira, while the Cape would
cure you in half the time: why, the voyage itself only begins to be
decent after you get south! But you won't see it; and the people who
_do_ see it are just the sort who don't pay us when they come, and
damage us when they go back,--hard cases, sent out to pick up a living
as well as their health, who get stranded and hurry home half-cured."

A young Briton in the deck-chair next to mine rose and walked off
abruptly, while I fumbled for a coin, ashamed to meet the collector's
eye.

"Hullo!" Mr. Olstein grinned at me. "Our friend's in a hurry to dodge
the subscription list."

But the young Briton turned and intercepted the collector as he moved
towards the next group.

"It's _your_ sovereign," said I, "that seems to be overlooked."

Mr. Olstein saw it at his elbow and re-pocketed it. "Well, if he hasn't
the sense to pick it up, I've some more than to whistle him back.
But that'll show you the sort of fool we send out to compete with
Germans and suchlike. It's enough to make a man ashamed of his
country."

This happened on a Saturday morning, and in the afternoon we attended
the sports--a depressing ceremony. The performers went through their
contests, so to speak, with bated breath and a self-consciousness which,
try as we might, poisoned our applause and made it insufferably
patronising. Their backers would pluck up heart and encourage them
loudly with Whitechapel catch-words, and anon would hush their voices in
uneasy shame. Our collector, brave by fits in his dignity as steward,
would catch the eye of a saloon-deck passenger and shrink behind the
enormous rosette which some wag had pinned upon him.

Next day I made an opportunity to speak with him, after service.
It needed no pressing to extract his story, and h