made a quick move in her chair.

"That's just what you ought to do!" she exclaimed.

"I wonder if I could," I said. "It would be hard to see it now, as it
looked at all the different times."

"You'll hardly be able to do that," the Englishman answered quietly.
"Because to each one of us, I suppose, not only his present but his past
is constantly changing to his view. But I wouldn't let that bother you.
What would interest me as a reader would be your view of your life as
you look back upon it to-day--in this present stage of your growth.

"I was raised in the Alps myself," he went on. "So _my_ picture of life
is the mountain path. As I climb and turn now and then to look back, the
twisting little path below appears quite different each time. But still
I keep on writing--my changing view of the slope behind and of the
rising peaks ahead. And now and then by working my hardest I've felt the
great joy of writing the truth. As you know, it isn't easy. But year by
year I've felt my readers grow in number. I believe they are going to
grow and grow, not mine nor yours but the readers of all the chaps like
ourselves, the readers who pick up each new book with the hope that one
more fellow has done his best--not to please them but to please
himself--by telling of life as he has seen it--his changing life through
his changing eyes."

* * * * *

After he left us there was a long silence. Both of us were thinking
hard. And as Eleanore looked up to the stars I saw their brightness in
her eyes.

"Yes," she said at last, "I'm sure. I'm sure you'd better take his
advice--and write as truthfully as you can the whole story as you see it
now--of this strange harbor you have known."

We talked long and eagerly that night.

CHAPTER VI

I began my story of the harbor. Every hour that I could spare from the
stories and sketches of tenement life by which I made a scant living
those days, I spent in gathering memories of my long struggle with this
place, arranging and selecting and setting them in order for this record
of the great life I had seen.

* * * * *

But this wide world has many such lives, many heaving forces. And ever
since I had been born, while I had been building for myself one after
the other these gods of civilization and peace--all unheeded by my eyes
a black shadow had been silently creeping over the whole ocean world.
Now from across the wa