erest they took in things was intelligent enough, though, obviously,
they had never seen anything of the sort before. Their faces as they
went ashore wore a cheerfully inconclusive expression. Notwithstanding
that this inspecting ceremony was supposed to be a preliminary to
immediate sailing, it was then, as they filed down our gangway, that I
received the inward monition that no sailing within the meaning of our
charter party would ever take place.

It must be said that in less than three weeks a move took place. When
we first arrived we had been taken up with much ceremony well toward the
centre of the town, and, all the street corners being placarded with
the tricolor posters announcing the birth of our company, the petit
bourgeois with his wife and family made a Sunday holiday from the
inspection of the ship. I was always in evidence in my best uniform to
give information as though I had been a Cook's tourists' interpreter,
while our quartermasters reaped a harvest of small change from
personally conducted parties. But when the move was made--that move
which carried us some mile and a half down the stream to be tied up to
an altogether muddier and shabbier quay--then indeed the desolation of
solitude became our lot. It was a complete and soundless stagnation; for
as we had the ship ready for sea to the smallest detail, as the frost
was hard and the days short, we were absolutely idle--idle to the point
of blushing with shame when the thought struck us that all the time our
salaries went on. Young Cole was aggrieved because, as he said, we could
not enjoy any sort of fun in the evening after loafing like this all
day; even the banjo lost its charm since there was nothing to prevent
his strumming on it all the time between the meals. The good Paramor--he
was really a most excellent fellow--became unhappy as far as was
possible to his cheery nature, till one dreary day I suggested, out of
sheer mischief, that he should employ the dormant energies of the crew
in hauling both cables up on deck and turning them end for end.

For a moment Mr. Paramor was radiant. "Excellent idea!" but directly
his face fell. "Why . . . Yes! But we can't make that job last more
than three days," he muttered, discontentedly. I don't know how long he
expected us to be stuck on the riverside outskirts of Rouen, but I know
that the cables got hauled up and turned end for end according to my
satanic suggestion, put down again, and their very exi