age and sin, and in spite of all the right-thinking person may
think, say or write, there was between us that sympathy which in our
times and conditions is the strongest and perhaps the truest of all
human qualities, the sympathy of drink. We were drinking mates together.
We were wrong-thinking persons too, and that was another bond of
sympathy between us.

There were cakes of tobacco, and books, and papers, and several flasks
of "rye-buck"--our push being distantly related to a publican who
wasn't half a bad sort--to cheer and comfort our departing mate on his
uncertain way; and these tokens of mateship and the sake of auld lang
syne were placed casually in his bunk or slipped unostentatiously into
his hand or pockets, and received by him in short eloquent silence (sort
of an aside silence), and partly as a matter of course. Every now and
then there would be a surreptitious consultation between two of us and
a hurried review of finances, and then one would slip quietly ashore and
presently return supremely unconscious of a book, magazine, or parcel of
fruit bulging out of his pocket.

You may battle round with mates for many years, and share and share
alike, good times or hard, and find the said mates true and straight
through it all; but it is their little thoughtful attentions when you
are going away, that go right down to the bottom of your heart, and lift
it up and make you feel inclined--as you stand alone by the rail when
the sun goes down on the sea--to write or recite poetry and otherwise
make a fool of yourself.

We helped our mate on board with his box, and inspected his bunk, and
held a consultation over the merits or otherwise of its position, and
got in his way and that of the under-steward and the rest of the crew
right down to the captain, and superintended our old chum's general
arrangements, and upset most of them, and interviewed various members
of the crew as to when the boat would start for sure, and regarded their
statements with suspicion, and calculated on our own account how long
it would take to get the rest of the cargo aboard, and dragged our mate
ashore for a final drink, and found that we had "plenty of time to slip
ashore for a parting wet" so often that his immediate relations grew
anxious and officious, and the universe began to look good, and kind,
and happy, and bully, and jolly, and grand, and glorious to us, and we
forgave the world everything wherein it had not acted straight towa