ds the bridge which he was about to mount to have
a look at the standard compass and see what course the helmsman was
steering, on his way from the poop, where I had noticed him talking with
the skipper as I came up the booby-hatch from below. "Hullo, Haldane!"
he cried, shouting almost in my ear, and giving me a playful dig in the
ribs at the same time; this nearly knocked all the breath out of my
body. "Is that you, my boy?"

"Aye, aye, sir," I replied, hesitating, for I was startled, alike by his
rather too demonstrative greeting as well as his unexpected approach.
"I--I--mean, yes, sir."

Mr Fosset laughed; a jolly, catching laugh it was--that of a man who
had just dined comfortably and enjoyed his dinner, and did not have,
apparently, a care in the world. "Why, what's the matter with you,
youngster?" said he in his chaffing way. "Been having a caulk on the
sly and dreaming of home, I bet?"

"No, sir," I answered gravely; "I've not been to sleep."

"But you look quite dazed, my boy."

I made no reply to this observation, and Mr Fosset then dropped his
bantering manner.

"Tell me," said he kindly, "is there anything wrong with you below? Has
that cross-grained little shrimp, Spokeshave, hang him! been bullying
you again, like he did the other day?"

"Oh no, sir; he's on the bridge now, and I ought to have relieved him
before this," I replied, only thinking of poor "Conky" and his tea then
for the first time. "I wasn't even dreaming of him; I'm sure I beg his
pardon!"

"Well, you were dreaming of some one perhaps `nearer and dearer' than
Spokeshave," rejoined Mr Fosset, with another genial laugh. "You were
quite in a brown study when I gave you that dig in the ribs. What's the
matter, my boy?"

"I was looking at that, sir," said I simply, in response to his
question, pointing upwards to the glory in the heavens. "Isn't it
grand? Isn't it glorious?"

This was a poser; for the first mate, though good-natured and good-
humoured enough, and probably a thinking man, too, in his way, was too
matter-of-fact a person to indulge in "dreamy sentimentalities," as he
would have styled my deeper thoughts! A sunset to him was only a
sunset, saving in so far as it served to denote any change of weather,
which aspect his seaman's eye readily took note of without any pointing
out on my part; so he rather chilled my enthusiasm by his reply now to
me.

"Oh, yes, it's very fine and all that, youngster," he obser