ied, and I was tactfully introduced
to one of his very few 'standing orders', that tobacco should not
burn, nor post-prandial chat begin, until that distasteful process
had ended. 'It would never get done otherwise,' he sagely opined. But
when we were finally settled with cigars, a variety of which, culled
from many ports--German, Dutch, and Belgian--Davies kept in a
battered old box in the net-rack, the promised talk hung fire.

'I'm no good at description,' he complained; 'and there's really very
little to tell. We left Dover--Morrison and I--on 6th August; made a
good passage to Ostend.'

'You had some fun there, I suppose?' I put in, thinking of--well, of
Ostend in August.

'Fun! A filthy hole I call it; we had to stop a couple of days, as we
fouled a buoy coming in and carried away the bobstay; we lay in a
dirty little tidal dock, and there was nothing to do on shore.'

'Well, what next?'

'We had a splendid sail to the East Scheldt, but then, like fools,
decided to go through Holland by canal and river. It was good fun
enough navigating the estuary--the tides and banks there are
appalling--but farther inland it was a wretched business, nothing but
paying lock-dues, bumping against schuyts, and towing down stinking
canals. Never a peaceful night like this--always moored by some quay
or tow-path, with people passing and boys. Heavens! shall I ever
forget those boys! A perfect murrain of them infests Holland; they
seem to have nothing in the world to do but throw stones and mud at
foreign yachts.'

'They want a Herod, with some statesmanlike views on infanticide.'

'By Jove! yes; but the fact is that you want a crew for that
pottering inland work; they can smack the boys and keep an eye on the
sculls. A boat like this should stick to the sea, or out-of-the-way
places on the coast. Well, after Amsterdam.'

'You've skipped a good deal, haven't you?' I interrupted.

'Oh! have I? Well, let me see, we went by Dordrecht to Rotterdam;
nothing to see there, and swarms of tugs buzzing about and shaving
one's bows every second. On by the Vecht river to Amsterdam, and
thence--Lord, what a relief it was!--out into the North Sea again.
The weather had been still and steamy; but it broke up finely now,
and we had a rattling three-reef sail to the Zuyder Zee.'

He reached up to the bookshelf for what looked like an ancient
ledger, and turned over the leaves.

'Is that your log?' I asked. 'I should like to have a look