oser did the poor ogre
come to heartache and to desire. He wrote spaciously, in the foolish
hope that I would reply narrowly, following a Doria scent laid down with
the naivete of childhood. I received constant telegrams informing me of
dates and addresses--I who, Jaffery out of England, never knew for
certain whether he was doing the giant's stride around the North Pole or
horizontal bar exercise on the Equator. It was rather pathetic, for I
could give him but little comfort.

Besides the letters, he (and Liosha) deluged us with photographs taken
chiefly by the absurd second mate, from which it was possible to
reconstruct the _S.S. Vesta_ in all her dismalness. You have seen scores
of her rusty, grimy congeners in any port in the world. You have only to
picture an old, two-masted, well-decked tramp with smokestack and foul
clutter of bridge-house amidships, and fore and aft a miserable bit of a
deck broken by hatches and capstans and donkey-engines and stanchions
and chains and other unholy stumbling blocks and offences to the casual
promenader. From the photographs and letters I learned that the
dog-hole, intended by the Captain for Jaffery, but given over to Liosha,
was away aft, beneath a kind of poop and immediately above the scrunch
of the propeller; and that Jaffery, with singular lack of privacy,
bunked in the stuffy, low cabin where the officers took their meals and
relaxations. The more vividly did they present the details of their
life, the more heartfelt were my thanksgivings to a merciful Providence
for having been spared so dreadful an experience.

Our two friends, however, found indiscriminate joy in everything; I have
their letters to prove it. And Jaffery especially found perpetual
enjoyment in the vagaries of Liosha. For instance, here is an extract
from one of his letters:

"It's a grand life, my boy! You're up against realities all the time.
Not a sham within the horizon. You eat till you burst, work till you
sleep, and sleep till you're kicked awake. You should just see Liosha.
Maturin says he has only met one other woman sailor like her, and that
was the daughter of a trader sailing among the Islands, who had lived
all her life since birth on his ship and had scarcely slept ashore.
She's as much born to it as any shell-back on board. She has the amazing
gift of looking part of the tub, like the stokers and the man at the
wheel. Unlike another woman, she's never in the way, and the more work
you