e them all
as self-conscious and furtive as though discovered in guilt. Hanson's
head appeared above the crowd, as he rose from a bench and went to the
official. "I'm the engineer of the _Cygnet_. We're waiting for Captain
Purdy."

The clerk complained. He pulled out his watch. "He said he would be
ready for me at ten this morning. Now you've lost your turn, and there
are three other ships." He turned away in a manner which told every one
that Hanson had now become non-existent, pushed aside the _Cygnet's_
papers, and searched the room once more. "Ah, good morning, Captain
Hudson. You ready for me? Then I'll take you next." The captain went
around to stand beside the official, and his crew clustered on their side
of the bars, with their caps in their hands.

"A good start that," said Hanson to me. "Perhaps, after all, we never
shall start. Must be a rum chap, that Purdy."

He told me the _Medea's_ crowd was there, but perhaps Macandrew had
already signed, and so would not appear. That meant I might not see him
for another year; but as I left the office I found him coming up its
steps outside, and not as though there were the affairs of a month to be
got into two days, but in leisurely abstraction. He might have been
making up his mind that, after all, there was no need to call there, for
he was studying each step as if he were looking for the bottom of a
mystery. His fingers were twirling the little ivory pig he carries as a
charm on his watchguard. The pig is supposed to assist him when he is in
a difficulty. He raised his eyes.

"Anyhow," he despaired to me with irrelevance, "I can't do anything for
him."

I waited for the chance of a clue. "I thought," Macandrew quietly
soliloquized, "he knew better than that. He's been a failure, but all
the same, he's got a better head than most of us. She's sure to bring
him to grief."

"What's all this about?" I ventured.

"I've just been talking to Purdy. You remember what Hanson said of that
voyage he's making? Purdy is taking Jessie with him. You don't know
Purdy, but I do. And I know Jessie; but that's nothing."

"Taking her with him?" I asked; "but how. . . ."

"Oh, cook, of course. That'll be it. She'll be steward, naturally.
That's reasonable. You've seen her. Jessie's the sort of woman would
jump at the chance of such a pleasant trip, as cook."

"I don't understand. . . ."

"Who said you did? Nobody does but the pair of them. I