ree that is, for a
moment. Their intruding faces caused him to roar in the most frightful
fashion; at which, hesitating as if before an injustice, they got out,
but still hung about the gangways. When, presently, he went ashore to pay
his official respects to the ship's agents, we saw a trail of these
indefatigables close on his heels, and on his return he said that four of
them had followed him all the way. I now perceived quite plainly why,
when I a stranger appeared aboard the _Bonadventure_ at Barry Dock and
desired to find the captain, there was no eager answer to my query.
Tailors, bootmakers (one with a motor-tyre or a piece of one over his
shoulder), engineers and I don't know who else formed the polysyllabic
cordon.

Meanwhile, the _Bonadventure_ was hauled in close to the edge of the
quay, and a gang of dock hands came on deck bearing ropes and pulley
blocks. The ship's derricks having been lifted, these made the first
preparations for discharging the cargo. The hatches were laid open, and
the planks covering them pitched aside much as though they were so many
walking-sticks. I was not the only one deluded by this despatch into
thinking our discharge likely to be over in a few days.

Buenos Aires; a tremendous town, a "southern Paris," a New-World epitome.
So much, so little I knew of it. It lay here, its heart not a half-hour's
walk from our mooring. But the vastness of the rumoured hive, the heat,
I daresay indolence too, prevented me from taking this first opportunity
for walking into the strange streets. It was excessively hot, and that
settled the matter. There was plenty to watch on the river and alongside:
it would have been odd, if it had not proved so. So, swollen somewhat
with the feeling that I was now a considerable seafarer, and not
unpleased to be mistaken for one by the miscellaneous visitors who had
by this examined the decks and accommodation--all doors locked--somewhat
fruitlessly, but still loitered, I stayed idle.

Trenches will recur to their old inhabitants. The small coal in the yards
here stood walled in with a breastwork of sandbags, built with tolerable
skill upon the old familiar pattern of headers and stretchers and as I
happened to be remarking upon this fact to the wireless man, interrupting
his propaganda about a strike in which he personally would resist to
the last, a little launch chanced past with the name _Ypres_ on her bows.

She was but one of an endless to and fro of s