Chapter I: Foreword

I met Billy Harman on Circular Wharf, Sydney, so many years ago that I think he must be dead. He is the chief person in the first six stories of this book, which have appeared illustrated in an English, an American and a Canadian magazine, in all of which the illustrator depicted Billy as a young, rather good-looking man. That he was not. Billy, when I met him, was well over forty, big and scrubby-bearded, a shell-back with a touch of the Longshoreman, blue far-seeing eyes, the eyes of a child—and an innocence none the less delightful because streaked with guile.

Only the sea could have produced Billy, and the Islands and the Beaches and the life which the Pacific makes possible for an Ocean Tramp.

CONTENTS

I. Bud and Billy
II. Mandelbaum
III. The Way of a Maid with a Man
IV. Sunk Without Trace
V. A Deal with “Plain Sailin’ Jim”
VI. Pearls of Great Price!
VII. Beaten on the Post
VIII. A Case in Point
IX. The Other One
X. Iron Law
XI. The Story of Billy Broke
XII. The Making of a Millionaire
XIII. Kiliwakee
XIV. Under the Flame Trees
XV. The Abbott Mystery

OCEAN TRAMPS

I—BUD AND BILLY