alked along the alleyway with a crazy
idea of calling the Chief half formed in my mind. But that seemed to
clash with the school-boy code that forbids sneaking. Poor old chap! I
thought. And yet I couldn't keep his watch. I had to get my sleep if I
was to be any good next day. I went back and lifted him, snoring, to his
feet. 'Come on, Mister,' I said, 'it's your watch.' And I heaved him
gently through the doorway and along the alleyway. I was nearly carrying
him. I don't know what my intention really was, whether I had a notion
the outside air would brace him up or whether I was going to tumble him
down the engine-room ladder. Anyhow, we were staggering about the dark
alleyway when we both fell with a crash against the Chief's door. It was
the most effectual thing I could have contrived. There was a growl of
'what's that?' from the Chief and he suddenly sprang out in his pyjamas.
Seeing only me, he shouted, 'What you making all this row about?' And
then he stumbled over old Croasan. I laughed. I couldn't help it. All
the while I was explaining to that indignant Chief how we came to be
there I was uttering cries of joy in my heart over the rich humanity of
it all. It was sordid and silly and wrong, but it was real. The Chief
lit his lamp and I saw his one bright eye and the empty, blood-red
socket glittering in the radiance. To think that I had been mad enough
to feel sick of the _Corydon_! I felt as if I had suddenly got home
again. And, just as suddenly, old Croasan had vanished. I looked at the
Chief in bewilderment. He eyed me solemnly, but without disfavour, and
strode along to our cabin. Throwing the empty bottle through the
port-hole, he said briefly, 'Get yourself turned in, Mister,' and went
back to his own room. I turned in quick, you can imagine. It had been a
great day for me. You may think it strange, but I look back at it as one
of the happiest in my life. Work! Work! It is the only thing that keeps
us sane when we're young. All else is only bladder--nonsense. Work and
the knowledge of it, and the planning of it. Work, and its failures, its
bitter anxieties, its gleams of inspiration, its mellow accomplishment,
and then the blessed oblivion!

"Well, four voyages I made in that old packet, each one worse than the
last, I believe--four voyages after nuts, and palm-oil, and enormous
square logs of mahogany, and cages of snarling leopards and screaming
parrots, and tanks of stealthy serpents. I used to wonder w