ked insufferably exemplary. He declared:

"That will pass. But you do look older--it's a fact."

"Aha!" I said.

"No! No! The truth is that one must not make too much of anything in
life, good or bad."

"Live at half-speed," I murmured perversely. "Not everybody can do
that."

"You'll be glad enough presently if you can keep going even at that
rate," he retorted with his air of conscious virtue. "And there's
another thing: a man should stand up to his bad luck, to his mistakes,
to his conscience and all that sort of thing. Why--what else would you
have to fight against."

I kept silent. I don't know what he saw in my face but he asked
abruptly:

"Why--you aren't faint-hearted?"

"God only knows, Captain Giles," was my sincere answer.

"That's all right," he said calmly. "You will learn soon how not to be
faint-hearted. A man has got to learn everything--and that's what so
many of them youngsters don't understand."

"Well, I am no longer a youngster."

"No," he conceded. "Are you leaving soon?"

"I am going on board directly," I said. "I shall pick up one of my
anchors and heave in to half-cable on the other directly my new crew
comes on board and I shall be off at daylight to-morrow!"

"You will," grunted Captain Giles approvingly, "that's the way. You'll
do."

"What did you think? That I would want to take a week ashore for a
rest?" I said, irritated by his tone. "There's no rest for me till she's
out in the Indian Ocean and not much of it even then."

He puffed at his cigar moodily, as if transformed.

"Yes. That's what it amounts to," he said in a musing tone. It was as
if a ponderous curtain had rolled up disclosing an unexpected Captain
Giles. But it was only for a moment, just the time to let him add,
"Precious little rest in life for anybody. Better not think of it."

We rose, left the hotel, and parted from each other in the street with
a warm handshake, just as he began to interest me for the first time in
our intercourse.

The first thing I saw when I got back to the ship was Ransome on the
quarter-deck sitting quietly on his neatly lashed sea-chest.

I beckoned him to follow me into the saloon where I sat down to write a
letter of recommendation for him to a man I knew on shore.

When finished I pushed it across the table. "It may be of some good to
you when you leave the hospital."

He took it, put it in his pocket. His eyes were looking away from
me--nowhere. His face was anxious