and, before we could wonder who
the visitor was, a little man in oilskins and a sou'-wester was
stooping towards us in the cabin door, smiling affectionately at
Davies out of a round grizzled beard.

'Well met, captain,' he said, quietly, in German. 'Where are you
bound to this time?'

'Bartels!' exclaimed Davies, jumping up. The two stooping figures,
young and old, beamed at one another like father and son.

'Where have you come from? Have some coffee. How's the 'Johannes'? Was
that you that came in last night? I'm delighted to see you!' (I spare
the reader his uncouth lingo.) The little man was dragged in and
seated on the opposite sofa to me.

'I took my apples to Kappeln,' he said, sedately, 'and now I sail to
Kiel, and so to Hamburg, where my wife and children are. It is my
last voyage of the year. You are no longer alone, captain, I see.' He
had taken off his dripping sou'-wester and was bowing ceremoniously
towards me.

'Oh, I quite forgot!' said Davies, who had been kneeling on one knee
in the low doorway, absorbed in his visitor. 'This is "_meiner
Freund_," Herr Carruthers. Carruthers, this is my friend, Schiffer
Bartels, of the galliot 'Johannes'.'

Was I never to be at an end of the puzzles which Davies presented to
me? All the impulsive heartiness died out of his voice and manner as
he uttered the last few words, and there he was, nervously glancing
from the visitor to me, like one who, against his will or from
tactlessness, has introduced two persons who he knows will disagree.

There was a pause while he fumbled with the cups, poured some cold
coffee out and pondered over it as though it were a chemical
experiment. Then he muttered something about boiling some more water,
and took refuge in the forecastle. I was ill at ease at this period
with seafaring men, but this mild little person was easy ground for a
beginner. Besides, when he took off his oilskin coat he reminded me
less of a sailor than of a homely draper of some country town, with
his clean turned-down collar and neatly fitting frieze jacket. We
exchanged some polite platitudes about the fog and his voyage last
night from Kappeln, which appeared to be a town some fifteen miles up
the fiord.

Davies joined in from the forecastle with an excess of warmth which
almost took the words out of my mouth. We exhausted the subject very
soon, and then my _vis-a-vis_ smiled paternally at me, as he had done
at Davies, and said, confidentially:

'