acquaintance. Clearly he was not
difficult to get on with. "I like him, very well," he continued, "though
it isn't easy to make him out. He seems to be up to a thing or two.
What's he doing?"

I informed him that our friend Marlow had retired from the sea in a sort
of half-hearted fashion some years ago.

Mr. Powell's comment was: "Fancied had enough of it?"

"Fancied's the very word to use in this connection," I observed,
remembering the subtly provisional character of Marlow's long sojourn
amongst us. From year to year he dwelt on land as a bird rests on the
branch of a tree, so tense with the power of brusque flight into its true
element that it is incomprehensible why it should sit still minute after
minute. The sea is the sailor's true element, and Marlow, lingering on
shore, was to me an object of incredulous commiseration like a bird,
which, secretly, should have lost its faith in the high virtue of flying.

CHAPTER TWO--THE FYNES AND THE GIRL-FRIEND

We were on our feet in the room by then, and Marlow, brown and
deliberate, approached the window where Mr. Powell and I had retired.
"What was the name of your chance again?" he asked. Mr. Powell stared
for a moment.

"Oh! The _Ferndale_. A Liverpool ship. Composite built."

"_Ferndale_," repeated Marlow thoughtfully. "_Ferndale_."

"Know her?"

"Our friend," I said, "knows something of every ship. He seems to have
gone about the seas prying into things considerably."

Marlow smiled.

"I've seen her, at least once."

"The finest sea-boat ever launched," declared Mr. Powell sturdily.
"Without exception."

"She looked a stout, comfortable ship," assented Marlow. "Uncommonly
comfortable. Not very fast tho'."

"She was fast enough for any reasonable man--when I was in her," growled
Mr. Powell with his back to us.

"Any ship is that--for a reasonable man," generalized Marlow in a
conciliatory tone. "A sailor isn't a globe-trotter."

"No," muttered Mr. Powell.

"Time's nothing to him," advanced Marlow.

"I don't suppose it's much," said Mr. Powell. "All the same a quick
passage is a feather in a man's cap."

"True. But that ornament is for the use of the master only. And by the
by what was his name?"

"The master of the _Ferndale_? Anthony. Captain Anthony."

"Just so. Quite right," approved Marlow thoughtfully. Our new
acquaintance looked over his shoulder.

"What do you mean? Why is it more right than if it had be