y rings, moved across the counter and
shook his arm in warning. The youngster merely closed his own hand over
it. "Isn't it hard. Really going to forsake us. Won't mix your whiskey
or uncork my lemonade any more. What are we going to do when we come
home now?"

There was an impatient muttering beyond him, and he made public a
soothing and exaggerated apology. All the men in the room, even the
group bent over a diagram of a marine engine they had drawn in chalk on
their table, looked up in surprise, first at the youngster who had raised
his voice, and then to watch the tall shadow of a woman pass quickly down
the counter-screen and vanish. Still laughing, the young man, with his
uniform cap worn a little too carelessly, nodded to the company, and went
out with his companion.

Macandrew stared in contempt at the back of the fellow as he went. "A
nice boy that. Too bright and bonny for my ship. What's that he was
saying about Jessie?" He tried to see where she was, and lowered his
voice. "I know his kind. I saw them together last night, in the Dock
Road. What does she have anything to do with him for? We know her of
course . . . but even then. . . . She's really not a bad sort. She's
like that with all those young dogs. Can't help it, I suppose."

He moved to the bar, a massive figure, beyond the age of a sea-going
engineer, but still as light on his feet as a girl. "Where's she gone?"
He pushed open one of the little glass screens, and put his petulant
face, with its pale eyes set like aquamarines in bronze, into an opening
too small to frame it. "Can you see her, Hanson?"

Hanson winked at me, adjusted the spectacles on his nose, and grinned.
With that grin, and his spectacles, he was as surprising as a handsome
gargoyle. His height compelled him to lean forward and to grin downward,
even when speaking to a big man like Macandrew. He turned to his chief
now, and both hands went up to his spectacles. In the way the corners of
his mouth turned up before he spoke, whimsically wrinkling his nose, and
in his intent and amused regard, there was a suggestion of the mockery of
a low immortal for beings who are fated earnestly to frustrate
themselves. His grin gave you the uncomfortable feeling that it was
useless to pretend you were keeping nothing from him.

"Here goes," said Hanson. "Never mind Jessie. I've got something to
tell you, Chief. I'm leaving you this voyage."

Macandrew was instantly