the literary touch, both the dramatist's instinct and the
fictionist's insight. His stories always ran up to a psychological
climax; but this was always disguised by the best narratory tricks. He
was one of those men of whom people always say, "if he could only write
as he talks." In point of fact, he wrote much better than he talked--but
he talked better than any one else. The unanalytic never allowed in
him for the spell of the spoken word, nor for the fiery quality of his
spirit.

As time went on, their talks grew more and ore confidential. Women's
faces began to gleam here and there in narrative. They began to indulge
in long discussions of the despised sex; at times they ran into fierce
controversy. Occasionally Honey Smith re-told a story which, from
the introduction of a shadowy girl-figure, became mysteriously more
interesting and compelling. Once or twice they nearly went over the
border-line of legitimate confidence, so intimate had their talk
become--muffled as it was by the velvety, star-sown dark and interrupted
only by the unheeded thunders of the surf. They were always pulling
themselves up to debate openly whether they should go farther,
always, on consideration, turning narrative into a channel much less
confidential and much less, interesting, or as openly plugging straight
ahead, carefully disguising names and places.

After a week or two, the first fine careless rapture of their escape
from death disappeared. The lure of loot evaporated. They did not stop
their work on "the ship-duffle," but it became aimless and undirected.
Their trips into the island seemed a little purposeless. Frank Merrill
had to scourge them to patrol the beach, to keep their signal sheets
flying, their signal fires burning. The effect upon their mental
condition of this loss of animus was immediate. They became perceptibly
more serious. Their first camp--it consisted only of five haphazard
piles of bedding--satisfied superficially the shiftless habits of
their womanless group; subconsciously, however, they all fell under
the depression of its discomfort and disorder. They bathed in the ocean
regularly but they did not shave. Their clothes grew ragged and torn,
and although there were scores of trunks packed with wearing apparel,
they did not bother to change them. Subconsciously they all responded to
these irregularities by a sudden change in spirit.

In the place of the gay talk-fests that filled their evenings, they
bega