incidence. Before he had time to say anything the glass door came
open with a bang and a tall, active man rushed in with great strides. His
face looked very red below his high silk hat. You could see at once he
was the skipper of a big ship.

"Mr. Powell after telling me in an undertone to wait a little addressed
him in a friendly way.

"I've been expecting you in every moment to fetch away your Articles,
Captain. Here they are all ready for you." And turning to a pile of
agreements lying at his elbow he took up the topmost of them. From where
I stood I could read the words: "Ship _Ferndale_" written in a large
round hand on the first page.

"No, Mr. Powell, they aren't ready, worse luck," says that skipper. "I've
got to ask you to strike out my second officer." He seemed excited and
bothered. He explained that his second mate had been working on board
all the morning. At one o'clock he went out to get a bit of dinner and
didn't turn up at two as he ought to have done. Instead there came a
messenger from the hospital with a note signed by a doctor. Collar bone
and one arm broken. Let himself be knocked down by a pair horse van
while crossing the road outside the dock gate, as if he had neither eyes
nor ears. And the ship ready to leave the dock at six o'clock to-morrow
morning!

"Mr. Powell dipped his pen and began to turn the leaves of the agreement
over. "We must then take his name off," he says in a kind of unconcerned
sing-song.

"What am I to do?" burst out the skipper. "This office closes at four
o'clock. I can't find a man in half an hour."

"This office closes at four," repeats Mr. Powell glancing up and down the
pages and touching up a letter here and there with perfect indifference.

"Even if I managed to lay hold some time to-day of a man ready to go at
such short notice I couldn't ship him regularly here--could I?"

"Mr. Powell was busy drawing his pen through the entries relating to that
unlucky second mate and making a note in the margin.

"You could sign him on yourself on board," says he without looking up.
"But I don't think you'll find easily an officer for such a pier-head
jump."

"Upon this the fine-looking skipper gave signs of distress. The ship
mustn't miss the next morning's tide. He had to take on board forty tons
of dynamite and a hundred and twenty tons of gunpowder at a place down
the river before proceeding to sea. It was all arranged for next day.
There would