ncing at her again. He seemed to have made
a brief examination and then dismissed her from his memory.

The problem of chairs was instantly solved by Bill. She opened the
window and she and Miss Fraenkel sat inside. Mr. Carville studied the
toe of his plain serviceable boot while these arrangements were being
carried out. He sat motionless in the Fourth Chair, and I could not help
feeling that the business of transferring Miss Fraenkel established Mr.
Carville's inalienable right to his seat.

"Full speed ahead!" said Mac, jocularly.

"I ought to explain," said Mr. Carville, "that as the years had gone by,
my mother and I had ceased to have very much sympathy with each other's
way of thinking. We had lived together, as was natural, but we had
gradually lost sight of the career my father had outlined for me. And
when I had lost my job in Victoria Street, really that was the last link
that snapped. I had no fancy for living in Oakleigh Park, especially
after what had happened to Gladys. You can understand that.

"Another thing. I had become in a small way an author. Don't imagine
that I'm setting up myself with you, sir. Not at all. I understand, I
hope, now, the difference between writing a book and being an author. It
was this way. To me, breaking into sea-life so sharp and suddenlike,
there were many things I noted that most men would never heed. I don't
heed them myself now. But then I did. And in port on Sundays, and
sometimes at sea when I couldn't sleep on the middle-watch, I'd jot
down little thumb-nail sketches, you might call them, of the things I
saw. 'Cameos of the Sea,' I'd put on the top. The whole thing wasn't as
long as some of the chapters in Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall,' and, to
tell you the truth, I had no great opinion of them. I only mention them
because of what happened. I had the sheets tied up in brown paper in my
sailor-bag.

"Well, I told my mother I wanted to live in London awhile, and as I
needed to be within reach of the Board of Trade Offices until I had
passed my exam., she saw no good reason for objecting. The next day, as
I was walking up the Strand, one of those streets in London that I've
never seen anywhere else, I caught sight of an old gateway at the end of
a passage. There was a date, 1570 or something as old, on the arch, and
as I strolled in I remembered I'd called on an architect who lived there
in the old days, when I was in Victoria Street. It was Clifford's Inn. I
was looki