ters and
the owners, the two masters a captain must serve, either of which could
and would break him and whose interests were diametrically opposed. He
cast his eyes about the room and closed the lids down on a vision of ten
thousand books. No; no more of the sea for him. There was power in all
that wealth of books, and if he would do great things, he must do them on
the land. Besides, captains were not allowed to take their wives to sea
with them.

Noon came, and afternoon. He forgot to eat, and sought on for the books
on etiquette; for, in addition to career, his mind was vexed by a simple
and very concrete problem: _When you meet a young lady and she asks you
to call, how soon can you call_? was the way he worded it to himself. But
when he found the right shelf, he sought vainly for the answer. He was
appalled at the vast edifice of etiquette, and lost himself in the mazes
of visiting-card conduct between persons in polite society. He abandoned
his search. He had not found what he wanted, though he had found that it
would take all of a man's time to be polite, and that he would have to
live a preliminary life in which to learn how to be polite.

"Did you find what you wanted?" the man at the desk asked him as he was
leaving.

"Yes, sir," he answered. "You have a fine library here."

The man nodded. "We should be glad to see you here often. Are you a
sailor?"

"Yes, sir," he answered. "And I'll come again."

Now, how did he know that? he asked himself as he went down the stairs.

And for the first block along the street he walked very stiff and
straight and awkwardly, until he forgot himself in his thoughts,
whereupon his rolling gait gracefully returned to him.

CHAPTER VI

A terrible restlessness that was akin to hunger afflicted Martin Eden. He
was famished for a sight of the girl whose slender hands had gripped his
life with a giant's grasp. He could not steel himself to call upon her.
He was afraid that he might call too soon, and so be guilty of an awful
breach of that awful thing called etiquette. He spent long hours in the
Oakland and Berkeley libraries, and made out application blanks for
membership for himself, his sisters Gertrude and Marian, and Jim, the
latter's consent being obtained at the expense of several glasses of
beer. With four cards permitting him to draw books, he burned the gas
late in the servant's room, and was charged fifty cents a week for it by
Mr. Higg