ddressed. "Some friends of his
came aboard this afternoon and he's gone off with them to celebrate."

There was a grin on the man's face as he spoke, and this, together with
his recollection of the decanter, left no illusions in Drew's mind as
to the character of the celebration.

"Any message to leave for the captain, sir?" the man inquired.

"Nothing important," returned Drew carelessly. "I may drop around and
see him to-morrow." And he blessed the belated windlass which would
give him a reasonable excuse for returning.

But even though the captain was absent, there were other things at hand
that spoke of the girl with the hazel eyes. There was the place where
she had dropped the letters. There was the post against which she had
leaned as she watched him recover them. And there, as he bent over the
edge of the pier, he saw the little boat that had played its part in
the day's happenings.

How musical her voice was! And she had smiled at him once--no, twice!
Smiled not only with her lips but with her eyes.

He thought of her as he went slowly uptown. He thought of her until he
went to sleep and then his thinking changed to dreaming.

Decidedly, Tyke was not the only one who was hard hit on that eventful
day.

CHAPTER IV

THE SHADOWS OF ROMANCE

When Allen Drew opened his eyes the next morning, he was conscious of
an unusual feeling of elation. He lay for a moment in the twilight
zone between sleeping and waking, seeking the reason. Then in a flash
it came to him.

He was out of bed in a twinkling. Life was too full and rich now to
waste it in sleep. Yesterday morning it had seemed drab and
commonplace. To-day it sparkled with prismatic hues. He was a new man
in a new world.

He found himself whistling from sheer excess of good spirits as he
moved about the room. He hurried through his shower and dressing in
record time. Then he despatched his breakfast with a speed and
absent-mindedness that were most unusual for him and evoked the mild
astonishment of his landlady. A few minutes later he had joined the
hurrying throng that was moving toward the nearest subway station. He
left the train at Fulton Street and surprised Winters by appearing at
the shop a half hour earlier than his usual time.

There were two reasons for pressing haste on this morning. The moving
from the old quarters to the new involved an amount of work that was
appalling. There were a thousand things to be done