the beginnings of
wisdom.

But the world of iron and smoke could not warm my body as well as it did
my mind, and while I was brooding over the increasing bite in the air of
that January afternoon, the officer whom I was to know soon as the mate, a
young man of clear-cut features and tranquil manner, told me to make use
of the saloon. I sat there reading, when another introduction took place.
The steward, a weighty old man remarkable at first sight for his brown
skull-cap, came in to say he had fitted me up with a cabin. Following him
up a staircase, I took over this dugout-like dwelling with no small
satisfaction. It was to be my home, he said, for three or four months
on this South American run. I unpacked, and washed away the unearned, and
unsuspected, film of coal-dust which was to characterize my home for the
same length of time.

Tea came, and I was mildly puzzled again, when the steward's assistant
asked me to choose between a bloater, cold meat, and so on. I was deciding
on something slenderer, when I realized that tea included supper, and
applied for a kipper. The captain's wife kept conversation alive. The
topic, I remember, was the lamented custom which once permitted captains'
wives to make "the round trip" with their husbands.

The coal still rattled into the holds every moment or two, and the same
process was going on all round us. The water was bright in the moon,
and the reflections of the lamps fastened high over the ships swum like
golden serpents in the ripples. In such a light, to such a watcher,
there seemed no end to the serried framework and the cordage to the
giant sea travellers of steel. The constant clanging and whistling and
crash spoke to the work of the machines, an occasional shout to the
guiding energies of the men.

III

The shipping office itself left no clear impression upon me, the next
morning, when I attended the business of signing on; but the visit
gave me my first view of the crew of the _Bonadventure_, which was
welcome. Many of them were coloured men, as ever, dressed in eye-catching
smartness. I reflected on the extent to which the market of boots of two
colours must depend on these firemen. Among the others, a Cornishman of
odd automatic gait, whose small head balanced a squarish black hat,
moved about with an inconsequence suggestive of some clever comedian. He
gave, however, no evidence of humorous abilities. The wooden-faced
man, to whom I have referred, answe