to Davies, and chaffing him
with having committed a grave offence against maritime law in having
'cooked' his log; but I checked myself, I scarcely know why, probably
because I guessed the joke would touch a sensitive place and fail.
Delicacy shrank from seeing him compelled either to amplify a
deception or blunder out a confession--he was too easy a prey; and,
after all, the matter was of small moment. I returned the book to the
shelf, the only definite result of its perusal being to recall my
promise to keep a diary myself, and I then and there dedicated a
notebook to the purpose.

We were just lighting our cigars when we heard voices and the splash
of oars, followed by a bump against the hull which made Davies wince,
as violations of his paint always did. 'Guten Abend; wo fahren Sie
bin?' greeted us as we climbed on deck. It turned out to be some
jovial fishermen returning to their smack from a visit to Sonderburg.
A short dialogue proved to them that we were mad Englishmen in bitter
need of charity.

'Come to Satrup,' they said; 'all the smacks are there, round the
point. There is good punch in the inn.'

Nothing loth, we followed in the dinghy, skirted a bend of the Sound,
and opened up the lights of a village, with some smacks at anchor in
front of it. We were escorted to the inn, and introduced to a
formidable beverage, called coffee-punch, and a smoke-wreathed circle
of smacksmen, who talked German out of courtesy, but were Danish in
all else. Davies was at once at home with them, to a degree, indeed,
that I envied. His German was of the crudest kind, _bizarre_ in
vocabulary and comical in accent; but the freemasonry of the sea, or
some charm of his own, gave intuition to both him and his hearers. I
cut a poor figure in this nautical gathering, though Davies, who
persistently referred to me as 'meiner Freund', tried hard to
represent me as a kindred spirit and to include me in the general
talk. I was detected at once as an uninteresting hybrid. Davies, who
sometimes appealed to me for a word, was deep in talk over anchorages
and ducks, especially, as I well remember now, about the chance of
sport in a certain _Schlei Fiord_. I fell into utter neglect, till
rescued by a taciturn person in spectacles and a very high cap, who
appeared to be the only landsman present. After silently puffing
smoke in my direction for some time, he asked me if I was married,
and if not, when I proposed to be. After this inquisitio