nto his big armchair. The letter was lying on the
mantelpiece.

"'It's very creditable to you to get the offer, and very kind of them to
make it,' he said. 'And I see also that Charles has been appointed chief
mate of that ship for one voyage.'

"There was, over leaf, a P.S. to that effect in Mr. Apse's own
handwriting, which I had overlooked. Charley was my big brother.

"I don't like very much to have two of my boys together in one ship,'
father goes on, in his deliberate, solemn way. 'And I may tell you that
I would not mind writing Mr. Apse a letter to that effect.'

"Dear old dad! He was a wonderful father. What would you have done? The
mere notion of going back (and as an officer, too), to be worried and
bothered, and kept on the jump night and day by that brute, made me feel
sick. But she wasn't a ship you could afford to fight shy of. Besides,
the most genuine excuse could not be given without mortally offending
Apse & Sons. The firm, and I believe the whole family down to the old
unmarried aunts in Lancashire, had grown desperately touchy about that
accursed ship's character. This was the case for answering 'Ready now'
from your very death-bed if you wished to die in their good graces. And
that's precisely what I did answer--by wire, to have it over and done
with at once.

"The prospect of being shipmates with my big brother cheered me up
considerably, though it made me a bit anxious, too. Ever since I
remember myself as a little chap he had been very good to me, and I
looked upon him as the finest fellow in the world. And so he was. No
better officer ever walked the deck of a merchant ship. And that's a
fact. He was a fine, strong, upstanding, sun-tanned, young fellow, with
his brown hair curling a little, and an eye like a hawk. He was just
splendid. We hadn't seen each other for many years, and even this time,
though he had been in England three weeks already, he hadn't showed up
at home yet, but had spent his spare time in Surrey somewhere making
up to Maggie Colchester, old Captain Colchester's niece. Her father, a
great friend of dad's, was in the sugar-broking business, and Charley
made a sort of second home of their house. I wondered what my big
brother would think of me. There was a sort of sternness about Charley's
face which never left it, not even when he was larking in his rather
wild fashion.

"He received me with a great shout of laughter. He seemed to think
my joining as an officer the gr