drank. It apparently had no effect on him, the liquor that he took.

"Say, but you're a tough one," complimented Molly.

But _it_ began in the afternoon. He picked up a stray dog from the floor
and began kissing it. And the dog slavered back, returning his
affection. Then he dropped the dog and began picking blue monkeys off
the wall ... wee things, he explained to us ... that he could hold
between thumb and forefinger ... only there were so many of them ...
multitudes of them ... that they rather distressed him ... they carried
the man away in an ambulance.

* * * * *

Hoppner and I tired of the ceaseless scrubbing. One day we simply walked
out of the Green Emerald and never showed up again. Hoppner stayed on in
town.

I found that the _Valkyrie_ had run up from Sydney to coal at Newcastle,
for the West Coast. I thought that in this case a little knowledge was
not a dangerous thing, but a good thing, as long as I confined that
knowledge to myself. I knew that the _Valkyrie_ was there. It was not
necessary that the officers of the boat should know I was there ...
which I wasn't, for I turned south, my swag on my back, and made Sydney
again.

* * * * *

In Sydney and "on the rocks," that is with nothing to eat and no place
to sleep but outdoors.

Of course I couldn't keep away from the ships. I arrived at the Circular
Quay. I ran into the Sailors' Mission. They were serving tea and having
a prayer-meeting. I wandered in.

A thin, wisplike man, timid, in black, but very gentlemanly, made me
heartily welcome. Not with that obnoxious, forced heartiness sky-pilots
think the proper manner to affect in dealing with sailors, but in a
human way genuinely felt.

After a service of hearty singing, he asked me if he could help me in
any way.

"I suppose you can. I'm on the rocks bad."

He gave me all the cakes to eat which were left over from the tea. And a
couple of shillings beside.

"I wonder if there's anything else I can do?"

"Yes, I'm a poet," I ventured, "and I'd like to get Chaucer's
_Canterbury Tales_ to read again." I said this as much to startle the
man as really meaning it. I can go so long without reading certain
poets, and after that I starve for them as the hungry starve for food. I
was hungry for Chaucer.

Such a request, coming from a youth almost in rags, impressed the
sky-pilot so deeply that he insisted on giving me a job pumping