ad in the light
and honest Ted asked hoarsely: `Where's your ship, guv'nor?'

"I didn't know. The constable was interested at my ignorance.

"`Don't know where your ship is?' he asked with curiosity. `And you the
second officer! Haven't you been working on board of her?'

"I couldn't explain that the only work connected with my appointment was
the work of chance. I told him briefly that I didn't know her at all.
At this he remarked: `So I see. Here she is, right before you. That's
her.'

"At once the head-gear in the gas light inspired me with interest and
respect; the spars were big, the chains and ropes stout and the whole
thing looked powerful and trustworthy. Barely touched by the light her
bows rose faintly alongside the narrow strip of the quay; the rest of
her was a black smudge in the darkness. Here I, was face to face with
my start in life. We walked in a body a few steps on a greasy pavement
between her side and the towering wall of a warehouse and I hit my shins
cruelly against the end of the gangway. The constable hailed her
quietly in a bass undertone `_Ferndale_ there!' A feeble and dismal
sound, something in the nature of a buzzing groan, answered from behind
the bulwarks.

"I distinguished vaguely an irregular round knob, of wood, perhaps,
resting on the rail. It did not move in the least; but as another
broken-down buzz like a still fainter echo of the first dismal sound
proceeded from it I concluded it must be the head of the ship-keeper.
The stalwart constable jeered in a mock-official manner.

"`Second officer coming to join. Move yourself a bit.'

"The truth of the statement touched me in the pit of the stomach (you
know that's the spot where emotion gets home on a man) for it was borne
upon me that really and truly I was nothing but a second officer of a
ship just like any other second officer, to that constable. I was moved
by this solid evidence of my new dignity. Only his tone offended me.
Nevertheless I gave him the tip he was looking for. Thereupon he lost
all interest in me, humorous or otherwise, and walked away driving
sternly before him the honest Ted, who went off grumbling to himself
like a hungry ogre, and his horrible dumb little pal in the soldier's
coat, who, from first to last, never emitted the slightest sound.

"It was very dark on the quarter-deck of the _Ferndale_ between the deep
bulwarks overshadowed by the break of the poop and frowned upon by the
fro