the town could make it. We certainly departed from
the usual haunts of sailors the first night; went on and on, until even
the adventurous Mead had to say: "This is rather a depraved kind of
street." And more, there was something in the air--some way off, we
heard the interrupted fire of (what roused imagination converted into)
a machine gun. The slatternly folk sitting, with white gleams of face
or dress in the shadows, by their doors; the herds of unaccustomed
faces in the large threadbare bars; the many groups of folk standing
expectantly about the street, and our own alien solitude--all gave this
sensation of disquiet. In a manner enjoying it, we proceeded, past an
orator roaring out in fine fury to a small but intent crowd, and presently
found ourselves in a large square with its many lamps, its glossy cars
stealing swiftly by or waiting on the rank, its fountains playing like
mists among deep green of trees.

Magnificent, and nearly empty, was the cafe into which we went; brilliant
its interior; attached to the gilded columns, how eloquent of drinking as
a fine art, its scoreboards announcing the many specialities! We stayed
until midnight. Then, having roughly found out our way home, we set
out for the docks, and, pausing to divine the sense of a poster giving
details of a "Radical" demonstration for the next day, saw the police
come hurrying up to a gathering of people round the next bar door.
One of the police as he passed us at speed caught his toe against a
stone and with his sword and fine feathers came down flat on the pavement.
The gathering at the bar door were so absorbed in their topic that no one
looked, much less laughed at his loud discomfiture.

Sometimes I found an occasion to leave the _Bonadventure_ in her noisy
dishabille, during the day. There was one walk with the wireless
operator to a smaller tramp in a distant dock, aboard which somewhat
shapelier ship than the _Bonadventure_ he had an acquaintance. Walking
over the irregular cobbles and among the railway lines of the wharves in
the heat was a sufficient exercise. We left our ship carpeted with
coal-dust; passed cattle pounds, grain elevators glaring white, and on
the opposite side steamers in process of being loaded or discharged;
went along a rail track where the grains which had lain longest had
sprung up in unavailing green, and under chutes where sacks of corn were
sliding down to the holds of ships. The mate of the _Primrose_ whom we