s dead. Can't come any too quick
for me, I tell you."

The moisture rushed into his eyes, but, before the other man could
comfort him, he began to hum a lilting sea song as though there was no
such thing as heartbreak in the world.

Given encouragement, this is the story he told while waiting in line at
the workhouse after two nights of exposure in the streets.

As a boy he had enlisted in the British navy, and for two score years and
more served faithfully and well. Names, dates, commanders, ports, ships,
engagements, and battles, rolled from his lips in a steady stream, but it
is beyond me to remember them all, for it is not quite in keeping to take
notes at the poorhouse door. He had been through the "First War in
China," as he termed it; had enlisted with the East India Company and
served ten years in India; was back in India again, in the English navy,
at the time of the Mutiny; had served in the Burmese War and in the
Crimea; and all this in addition to having fought and toiled for the
English flag pretty well over the rest of the globe.

Then the thing happened. A little thing, it could only be traced back to
first causes: perhaps the lieutenant's breakfast had not agreed with him;
or he had been up late the night before; or his debts were pressing; or
the commander had spoken brusquely to him. The point is, that on this
particular day the lieutenant was irritable. The sailor, with others,
was "setting up" the fore rigging.

Now, mark you, the sailor had been over forty years in the navy, had
three good-conduct stripes, and possessed the Victoria Cross for
distinguished service in battle; so he could not have been such an
altogether bad sort of a sailorman. The lieutenant was irritable; the
lieutenant called him a name--well, not a nice sort of name. It referred
to his mother. When I was a boy it was our boys' code to fight like
little demons should such an insult be given our mothers; and many men
have died in my part of the world for calling other men this name.

However, the lieutenant called the sailor this name. At that moment it
chanced the sailor had an iron lever or bar in his hands. He promptly
struck the lieutenant over the head with it, knocking him out of the
rigging and overboard.

And then, in the man's own words: "I saw what I had done. I knew the
Regulations, and I said to myself, 'It's all up with you, Jack, my boy;
so here goes.' An' I jumped over after him, my mind made up t