aspect of that deck hand (I suppose he was that--very likely the
lamp-trimmer) surprised me very much. My course of reading, of dreaming,
and longing for the sea had not prepared me for a sea brother of that
sort. I never met again a figure in the least like his except in the
illustrations to Mr. W. W. Jacobs's most entertaining tales of barges
and coasters; but the inspired talent of Mr. Jacobs for poking endless
fun at poor, innocent sailors in a prose which, however extravagant in
its felicitous invention, is always artistically adjusted to observed
truth, was not yet. Perhaps Mr. Jacobs himself was not yet. I fancy
that, at most, if he had made his nurse laugh it was about all he had
achieved at that early date.

Therefore, I repeat, other disabilities apart, I could not have been
prepared for the sight of that husky old porpoise. The object of
his concise address was to call my attention to a rope which he
incontinently flung down for me to catch. I caught it, though it was
not really necessary, the ship having no way on her by that time. Then
everything went on very swiftly. The dinghy came with a slight bump
against the steamer's side; the pilot, grabbing for the rope ladder, had
scrambled half-way up before I knew that our task of boarding was done;
the harsh, muffled clanging of the engine-room telegraph struck my ear
through the iron plate; my companion in the dinghy was urging me to
"shove off--push hard"; and when I bore against the smooth flank of
the first English ship I ever touched in my life, I felt it already
throbbing under my open palm.

Her head swung a little to the west, pointing toward the miniature
lighthouse of the Jolliette breakwater, far away there, hardly
distinguishable against the land. The dinghy danced a squashy, splashy
jig in the wash of the wake; and, turning in my seat, I followed the
James Westoll with my eyes. Before she had gone in a quarter of a mile
she hoisted her flag, as the harbour regulations prescribe for arriving
and departing ships. I saw it suddenly flicker and stream out on the
flag staff. The Red Ensign! In the pellucid, colourless atmosphere
bathing the drab and gray masses of that southern land, the livid
islets, the sea of pale, glassy blue under the pale, glassy sky of that
cold sunrise, it was, as far as the eye could reach, the only spot of
ardent colour--flame-like, intense, and presently as minute as the tiny
red spark the concentrated reflection of a great