ans for the future, so we
stuck a false moustache on him, corked his eyebrows, and thus disguised
kept him smuggled in our rooms for ten days, during which time Bacchus
created Babel. And then we had him photographed in various
attitudes--singly, and surrounded by groups of admirers--and then we
went out with him to the station, saw him in a train for Liverpool
Street, and--that's all. He was never viewed or heard of again. His
period of brilliance up there was very comet-like.

CHAPTER III.

VAGABOND.

"Hysterical madness" was the definition Cospatric clapped on to that
culminating episode of his Cambridge life; "but," he added, with a
chuckle, "I did enjoy myself whilst the fun lasted. That's just typical
of the particular fool I am. Nature intended me for clown in a
third-rate travelling circus. The father made up his mind I was to be a
big thing in the lawyering way. The two clashed, and the present state
of affairs is the result. If some far-seeing guardian could only have
averaged matters, I might have turned out very differently. I'd have
made a good courier, for instance, if such an animal had been in demand
nowadays; or a continental drummer, if the commercial part of the work
could have been left out; or even a passable navy officer. As it is,
I'm nothing; I'm no mortal good to anybody: and I have a very tolerable
time of it. Look, that's my boat."

We had worked our way down past the intervening barriers of water and
wood, and were walking on the fjord shore. Rounding a bluff, we had
suddenly opened out a small cutter of some six-and-twenty or thirty
tons, riding to her anchor in the mouth of the river. One concluded
that she was a yacht, as she was flush-decked, and had a skylight
instead of a cargo-hatch amidships; but her lines were a good deal of
the dray-horse type, and as for smartness, she did not know the meaning
of the word. I expect traces of this opinion showed in my face, for
Cospatric saw fit to explain.

"I learnt my sailoring in an untidy school," he said--"tramp steamers,
coasting schooners, collier brigs, and timber barques; and those aren't
the sort of craft that rub neatness into a man. Our motto in the little
drogher yonder is to keep her afloat with the least possible bother to
ourselves. We never lie in swagger harbours to be looked at. There
isn't a burgee or a brass button on board. Strict Spartan utility is
very much the motto of the ship's company. Hence, for example, y