"If she could only see you now. Why in thunder didn't you take those
clothes on board? I wanted you to. Couldn't a captain wear a dress
suit on special occasions?"

"Mac," I said gravely, "if you will think a moment, you will remember
that the only special occasions on the Ella, after I took charge, were
funerals. Have you sat through seven days of horrors without realizing
that?"

Mac had once gone to Europe on a liner, and, having exhausted his
funds, returned on a cattle-boat.

"All the captains I ever knew," he said largely, "were a fussy
lot--dressed to kill, and navigating the boat from the head of a
dinner-table. But I suppose you know. I was only regretting that she
hadn't seen you the way you're looking now. That's all. I suppose I
may regret, without hurting your feelings!"

He dropped all mention of Elsa after that, for a long time. But I saw
him looking at me, at intervals, during the evening, and sighing. He
was still regretting!

We enjoyed the theater, after all, with the pent-up enthusiasm of long
months of work and strain. We laughed at the puerile fun, encored the
prettiest of the girls, and swaggered in the lobby between acts, with
cigarettes. There we ran across the one man I knew in Philadelphia,
and had supper after the play with three or four fellows who, on
hearing my story, persisted in believing that I had sailed on the Ella
as a lark or to follow a girl. My simple statement that I had done it
out of necessity met with roars of laughter and finally I let it go at
that.

It was after one when we got back to the lodging-house, being escorted
there in a racing car by a riotous crowd that stood outside the door,
as I fumbled for my key, and screeched in unison: "Leslie! Leslie!
Leslie! Sic 'em!" before they drove away.

The light in the dingy lodging-house parlor was burning full, but the
hall was dark. I stopped inside and lighted a cigarette.

"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, Mac!" I said. "I've got
the first two, and the other can be had--for the pursuit."

Mac did not reply: he was staring into the parlor. Elsa Lee was
standing by a table, looking at me.

She was very nervous, and tried to explain her presence in a
breath--with the result that she broke down utterly and had to stop.
Mac, his jovial face rather startled, was making for the stairs; but I
sternly brought him back and presented him. Whereon, being utterly
confounded, he made the tactful re