the well-deck,
side-stepped a yawning hatch, dodged a swinging cargo net stuffed with
trunks, and entered the second-class smoking-room. From there he elbowed
his way to the second-class promenade deck. A stream of tearful and
hilarious visitors who, like sheep in a chute, were being herded down
the gangway, engulfed him. Unresisting, Jimmie let himself, by weight of
numbers, be carried forward.

A moment later he was shot back to the dock and to the country from
which at that moment, in deck cabin A4, he was supposed to be drawing
steadily away.

Dodging the electric lights, on foot he made his way to his
lodging-house. The night was warm and moist, and, seated on the stoop,
stripped to shirt and trousers, was his landlord.

He greeted Jimmie affably.

"Evening, Mr. Hull," he said. "Hope this heat won't keep you awake."

Jimmie thanked him and passed hurriedly.

"Mr. Hull!"

The landlord had said it.

Somewhere out at sea, between Fire Island and Scotland Lightship, the
waves were worrying with what once had been Jimmie Blagwin, and in a
hall bedroom on Twenty-third Street Henry Hull, with frightened eyes,
sat staring across the wharves, across the river, thinking of a
farmhouse on Long Island.

His last week on earth had been more of a strain on Jimmie than he
appreciated; and the night the _Ceramic_ sailed he slept the drugged
sleep of complete nervous exhaustion. Late the next morning, while he
still slept, a passenger on the _Ceramic_ stumbled upon the fact of his
disappearance. The man knew Jimmie; had greeted him the night before
when he came on board, and was seeking him that he might subscribe to a
pool on the run. When to his attack on Jimmie's door there was no reply,
he peered through the air-port, saw on the pillow, where Jimmie's head
should have been, two letters, and reported to the purser. Already the
ship was three hundred miles from where Jimmie had announced he would
drown himself; a search showed he was not on board, and the evidence of
a smoking-room steward, who testified that at one o'clock he had left
Mr. Blagwin alone on deck, gazing "mournful-like" at Fire Island, seemed
to prove Jimmie had carried out his threat. When later the same
passenger the steward had mistaken for Jimmie appeared in the
smoking-room and ordered a drink from him, the steward was rattled. But
as the person who had last seen Jimmie Blagwin alive he had gained
melancholy interest, and, as his oft-told tale was