Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

But the business of that morning was the cleaning up of the yacht, and the taking aboard of the owner and guests. They came, at ten o'clock, and Captain Bill and the steward received them at the gangway. The owner was the conventional wealthy man, dignified and severe, who spoke sternly to his sailing-master, politely to his guests, and smiled only upon his daughter, a person who invited and demanded smiles. The abashed steward smiled, as he took her bundle of shawls from her; Big Bill smiled, as he sent forward a thundering order for men to lift the baggage out of the boat; and the cabin-boy smiled, as he opened the companion door for her. She was about twenty-one, with dark hair and eyes, and of medium height and build, beautiful, as men value beauty, but with the additional charm of presence that we cannot name except as personality. The friends of such people smile with them, laugh with them, frown with them, and suffer with them, and each thinks it emotion of his own. She had smiled upon Bill, and he went forward, smiling himself, and happier than he had been for years--for all the years since he had hoped for his commission, and failed to pass the test. He spared a few moments to the kitten, fondling, stroking, and caressing it, then tucking it snugly beneath his blanket against the time when he would come again.

In bringing this kitten aboard, Bill was guilty of disobedience; the owner had told him explicitly that the big yacht was to be kept clear of cats. But as the owner had given no reason for this embargo, he had considered it merely the whim of the moment, expressed by an irritable old man, and forgot it quickly.

Bill conned the big steam yacht down the river, through the Narrows, and out to sea by the Ambrose Channel; then, just a little tired, and able to enjoy a smoke, he was about to call the mate to the bridge, when Miss Mayhew appeared. She climbed the steps, rigged out in a hooded mackintosh--for there was a Scotch mist in the air--and with her was one of the guests--a tall, well-built, intellectual-looking fellow named Pearson, a lawyer, as Bill knew by the steward's gossip, and a devoted attendant on Miss Mayhew.

"You are the captain, aren't you?" ventured the girl. "Do you know, Captain Flanders, that I've never met a real captain in my life, until now, though I've read of so many? Have you ever led a cavalry charge?"

"What?" gasped Bill. "Why, Miss Mayhew! No, I'm a seafaring man, not a soldier."

"There are several kinds of captain, Miss Mayhew," interposed the lawyer, smiling. "There is the captain of a battleship, we'll say, or of a cruiser, a destroyer, or the captain of a merchant ship, a North River sloop, a mud scow, a tug, or a canal boat; then we have captains in the army, who might lead cavalry charges and we have captains of militia--tin soldiers, some call them--and captains of industry, captains in the Salvation Army, captains of police, and captains of boy soldiers in the parochial and industrial schools."

"And where, and how, do you classify me?" said Bill, his eyes opened wide, and his voice tense and restrained.

"You?" said the lawyer. "Why, under the rules of the New York Yacht Club, you are not a 'captain,' but a 'mister.' You are Mister Flanders, not Captain Flanders."

"I am?" stuttered Bill, in a suppressed fury of rage. "Yes, you're right. Under the rules of the club I am mister, while the owner is captain, but in the minds of my crew I am called captain of this ship, and away from soundings, under the law, I _am_ captain, with power, backed by the law, to put a recalcitrant guest in irons if he gets too fresh. Get off this bridge instantly, or I'll call my men; and if you resist, I'll have you in irons."

"You will?" asked the smiling Pearson. "Well, all right; put me in irons, and I will deprive you of your license."

"You will not!" stormed Bill. "We're off the three-mile limit, and on the high seas. Get off this bridge, or I will confine you for mutinous insubordination. Go, and go quickly, or I'll call the boatswain."

"Gentlemen, Captain Flanders, Mr. Pearson," interposed the girl, anxiety and apprehension in her face. "Please do not quarrel. Why should you?"

She looked appealingly at Bill, and his rage left him. Yet it took a moment or two before he could speak sanely, then he said:

"Of course not. Mr. Pearson, I apologize for my share in this."

"And I apologize for mine," responded the lawyer; "but I think it best, Miss Mayhew, that we go down now. Good afternoon, Mister Flanders."

He smiled sweetly as he spoke, and turned his back; the girl smiled, too, but from a different motive, as Bill could readily perceive. There was trouble in her face--embarrassment, shame, and sympathy--and something else which Bill could not analyze.

"Don't mind," she whispered, then followed her escort down the steps.

Bill called his first mate, gave him the course, and went to his room abaft the pilot house. Here he lit his pipe, and lay down--all standing--in his berth; but not to sleep, only to think of the bright face peeping out of the mackintosh hood, and the troubled smile, and the whispered admonition. He thought, too, of the blackness of lawyers, and dozed off profanely reviling them to be wakened by the purring and caresses of the kitten. Bill petted the small thing, and forgot Mr. Pearson, but remembered the troubled smile and the whispered words.

After that the girl came many times to the bridge, and always without escort of father or admirer. There were plenty of these, and Bill took the measure of all, as he glanced aft occasionally, and saw them dancing attendance upon her. There was a little slim fellow, named Arsdale, whom the steward described as an artist; a big, portly gentleman, named Muggins, who was a famed short-story writer--and Bill, as he looked at him, wondered why he himself could not write short stories and be famous--and a magazine editor on his vacation, a fine fellow, as men go, one who had especially commended himself to Bill by his tact, his appreciation of the big fellow's inborn qualities, and by his deprecation of his own. "I'm only an editor," he had said, "a critic of other men's work. I'd give my job if I could do something original, if I could write something, or do something, or paint something, or kill something. I have tried the last, but never succeeded; the authors I tried to kill got new life from other editors, so--what's the use?" This man's name was Elkins, and Bill liked him, until he saw Miss Mayhew smiling on him; then he classed him in with the rest. A man in love is not reasonable, and this was Big Bill's condition, as he was forced to remind himself when the gossipy steward informed him that, to the best of his understanding, Miss Mayhew was an adopted daughter, and in no way likely to inherit the vast wealth of the father--stocks and bonds, steamship lines, railroads, and such things. As a rich man's daughter, she was out of his reach, and, as an honorable man with a full supply of self-respect, he could not make an advance. But as a ward, a poor dependent, she was on his level, and the big soul of the big boy rejoiced. He loved her, and he would have her. So he told himself, joyously and courageously.

Another man among the guests worried Bill, until he learned that he was the family doctor; he worried him by his assiduous attentions to the girl, even against the presence of his own wife in the party, and it was the owner himself who set the matter right. Doctor Calkins, it transpired, had been a member of the family, practically, since the girl was born. So, with his rivals all placed and classified, Big Boy Bill grew tranquil. But he still kept his eye on Pearson.

And so the big yacht charged across the Atlantic, with Bill on the bridge or in his room with the kitten, the male contingent of the guests attending upon Miss Mayhew, and Miss Mayhew herself seemingly indifferent to their attentions, manifesting a strong desire for Bill's society on the bridge. She came, as often as she could, to talk with him, to scold him for imagined masculine peccadilloes, and to smile upon him. And Bill went under.

He knew, as all men know under such conditions, that the small, sweet girl loved him as the little kitten loved him, just because he was big, and strong, and protective. And while he could not, under the circumstances, manifest his response to the girl, he took it out of the kitten when off duty; he would grab the little thing, bring it up to his lips, kiss it, and fondle it, and hug it--all of which brought response from the cat in the shape of scratch marks on Bill's face; for cats are not psychologists; they know nothing of the workings of the male human mind.

But still the cat was fond of Bill, as manifested by purrings and kittenish advances, and Bill was no less fond of the cat, in spite of the scratches on his face. He gave the small creature the caresses that he would have given the girl that he loved, had he have been allowed to. Yet there came a moment when he was perilously near to being allowed to.

She joined him on the bridge, when his first mate was asleep, the guests aft in deck chairs, and the father and owner below in his room; she had brought her fancywork--mysterious to Bill, for he saw nothing but scissors, needles, and an expanse of white cloth, all of which he knew nothing about.

There was a half gale of wind blowing; the awning was furled, the weather cloths stretched along the bridge railing, and the deck chairs of the guests placed in snug positions under the lee of the houses; there was a lively sea rolling, which prevented any great activity of mind or body in the guests, and no one seemed to care that the owner's daughter came to the bridge. Bill brought her a chair from his room, and incidentally aroused the kitten from sleep; the kitten purred, and, receiving only one pat and stroke, followed her big master to the door of the room. There she stood, looking out on the stormy sea, and, no doubt, jealous of the other kittenish creature in the mackintosh, whom Bill was seating in the chair.

The small fluffy lump of darkness saw her lord and master apparently petting another creature, and came out on the bridge, shivering with cold, yet animated by a purpose of protest. She crept up to the pair, out of sight of the man at the wheel in the pilot house and sprang on to Bill's shoulders, purring contentedly, and giving him a tentative dig of admonition with her sharp claws. Bill reached up, to pet her and bring her down--possibly to introduce her to the girl. But this was not permitted. Miss Mayhew screamed, stood up, and backed away, her eyes wide open in terror and dismay; then Bill, dimly understanding that the cat was an interloper, took it down, and tossed it toward the door of his room. Then the girl, uttering incoherent little cries, of terror, flung herself into his arms and the big fellow infolded her, kissing and comforting her, and promising protection from danger which he did not sense or understand. The man at the wheel was busy, the guests more or less asleep; no one saw but the slighted kitten. Bill kissed the frightened little face again and again, and the outraged kitten acted. With one leap she reached Miss Mayhew's shoulders, and, spitting and purring her hatred and love, she separated the two. The girl, gasping and choking, shrank back, struck the small creature a blow that sent it flying three yards away, and went insane. She turned on Bill in a fury of rage, and, while she uttered no word that could not be printed in a modern novel, yet there was enough of invective, threat, and menace in her attitude to make the big man back away from her, shocked and horrified beyond conception. The girl followed him, waving her scissors, tightly clutched in her hand, her eyes blazing, her face distorted in furious rage, and her small body quivering with the emotions that racked it.

"You cowardly dog!" she screamed. "You dared to play this trick on me? If God will help me, I will kill you."

She lunged at Bill with the scissors, and he dodged. He could not speak in protest or argument; he was too surprised and shaken. All he could do was to run to the door of his room. She followed part way, and then paused, her eyes still blazing, and her face distorted; yet she seemed to be trying to control herself.

"Don't ever, while you live," she said calmly, "speak to me again, or attempt to."

"Very well, Miss Mayhew," answered Bill gravely. "I'm sorry, but I do not understand."

He turned into his room, as the best place for him, and noticed the black kitten darting out. Then he heard a scream from the girl, and turned to look. She was making for the bridge stairs, her scissors still tightly clutched, and the wee, black cause of the trouble chasing her. Bill caught his pet, and shut it in with him, while he smoked, and thought, and deduced, with the logic of a poor man, on the never-solved problem--the inscrutability of women.

In half an hour he was aroused by a shout, and went on deck. His men were tumbling out of the forecastle; stewards, cooks, and guests were scrambling forward, and a glance down from the head of the steps showed Bill the cause. Miss Mayhew lay prone on the deck, the scissors still gripped in her small hand, but the points driven into her side, and a pool of blood drifting down to the scuppers from the wound. Bill jumped clear of every step, and, landing beside her, picked her up. She was unconscious, and her eyes were closed. It took an effort of strength, but he drew the scissors out of the wound, and looked helplessly into the face of the doctor.

"What happened?" asked the latter. "Well, never mind what happened. She has fallen down the stairs and wounded herself with her scissors. Carry her aft. We must stop this effusion of blood. Heavens"--he looked at the deck--"she has bled a quart already. Aft with her quickly."

Bill carried the limp and bleeding form back to the cabin, and, having laid it gently on the bed in her stateroom, was moved to go. He was sailing master; the agonized father was there, the doctor, a member of the family and acting the part; the doctor's wife, a motherly and practical old lady, and a group of quiet, gentlemanly, and questioning rivals, whom Bill had no love for and who invited their own destruction by the looks they gave him. Bill went to the bridge, called his mate, then, capturing the steward on his way forward to the galley, ordered him to report, as he valued his life, on the condition of the sick girl. The steward promised, and Bill waited on the bridge.

The steward went aft, and Bill watched him come up on the run and race forward. Bill again cleared the bridge stairs at a jump, and met him.

"Dying, captain," gasped the steward. "Dying from loss of blood."

Bill went aft--he never remembered whether he walked or ran--and bolted down the stairs, shoving aside the small Arsdale, the big Muggins, the athletic Parsons, and even the gentlemanly Elkins, all of them white in the face, as they hovered near the stateroom door, and burst into the room, where the grief-stricken father, the anxious doctor, and the weeping Mrs. Calkins hovered over the quiet, unconscious form on the bed. The rivals followed him in, but did not attempt to get between him and the girl. The doctor looked around at them, while Bill leaned over and raised the girl's head in the palm of his hand. He choked, but did not speak.

"Nothing but transfusion of blood will save her," said Doctor Calkins. "Who will volunteer?"

"I will," stuttered young Arsdale.

"You won't do, young man," said the doctor, coldly. "You're not big enough, and need all the blood you have for yourself."

"Then I'm the man," said Muggins, the author. "Heavens, what an experience! What a story I can make of it!"

"You won't do, sir," repeated the doctor to this aspirant. "Your blood is impregnated with alcohol, and Lord knows what. I would as soon inoculate her with vitriol." Mr. Muggins left the room.

Mr. Pearson drew back, very pale in the face, evidently impressed with the thought that he was expected to offer himself to the sacrifice; but no one seemed to notice, and Mr. Elkins, the editor, faced the doctor.

"I have mentioned to the captain," he said, "my wish to do something, be something, make something, before I die. I am a healthy man, Doctor Calkins, and I offer myself."

The doctor looked him over approvingly.

"It will take a full quart of your blood. You may not survive."

"Take it," said Elkins firmly. "I will run the chance."

Bill looked up, dazed and shaking. He had dimly recognized the drift of the talk, but now grasped the fact in its entirety that a man--another than himself--was ready to die for this girl that he loved. It was preposterous, unthinkable, and impossible. He laid the girl's head back on the pillow, and motioned Mr. Elkins out of the room. Mr. Elkins went quickly and quietly. There was that in Bill's face that induced him to obey the gesture.

Pearson and Arsdale followed as quickly, stumbling somewhat in their haste, and even the stern old father drew away from Bill.

"Does she need my blood?" asked Bill grimly. "I've plenty to spare. Take it all."

"You are needed to command this boat," said the doctor.

"I am not. My two mates can navigate. Get ready quickly, or she may die while you're talking."

Bill threw off his coat and rolled up his sleeve, showing an arm as big as an ordinary leg. The doctor rushed for his instruments, and while he was gone the owner asked brokenly of Bill how it happened.

"I do not know, sir," he answered, resolved not to describe the scene to her disadvantage. "I did not see her fall. I think nobody saw her fall."

"God grant that she lives!" said the old man, all the austerity gone from his face. "I can do nothing, willing as I am, for I am old and feeble; but you are young and strong. You see, there is much at stake beside by own grief and suffering. She is my daughter, and the real owner of this yacht, and every bond, and share, and mortgage that I control. Should she die, I would die myself--from poverty and want, while her relatives would obtain control. Still," and the old man stiffened up, "why should I speak of this? She is my daughter. I love her, for she is all I have left. Save her life, and while I live I am at your command."

"The hell you say!" said Bill. "I thought she was your ward."

"My daughter by my second wife," said the old gentleman, with dignity. "My first wife, with all her relations, is still alive and fighting me."

"I think," said Bill reflectively, "that I understand. Well," and here the doctor appeared with his appurtenances, "you don't love this little girl any more than I do, and I'll do my part."

"Lie down beside her quickly," ordered the doctor. Bill did so.

"Can you stand pain?" asked the doctor of Bill. "Or do you want an anæsthetic?"

"Go ahead," growled Bill, between his teeth. "Work quickly."

"I am going to sever a vein in both your arms, and connect them by this tube. Miss Mayhew is unconscious, and will feel no pain. But _you_ will."

"Go ahead," yelled Bill. "What do I care for pain? Use your surgical skill, and save her life, or, by God, I'll toss you overboard. Quickly, now. Go ahead, before she dies."

"I will," answered the doctor grimly, as he picked up his lancet.

Bill felt pain; he felt that his arm was being torn from his shoulder, as the doctor severed a large vein, and dragged the upper end out from the bleeding wound. He gritted his teeth, however, and closed his eyes tightly, while the doctor ligatured the vein and bound its end around the tube; then, shivering in every muscle of his body, he waited while the same operation was performed on the arm of the girl. Then the ligatures were removed, and Bill slowly went to sleep, the pain and distress, love of the girl, and interest in life leaving him as the somnolence increased.

He awakened a few years later, as he thought, lying in his own berth abaft the pilot house, his arm bound to his side, and the black kitten nestling upon his chest. He looked at the little creature, and an ungovernable hatred overcame him. He could barely lift his free arm, but with this arm and hand he brushed the kitten off to the floor. Then he tried to pull himself together, but did not succeed; things were obscure, he could not remember, and all he felt was hatred of the cat, now glaring at him from under the chart table. There was a nautical almanac in the berth, and Bill flung it at the cat; but she dodged, and ran out on deck. Then she came back in the arms of Miss Mayhew, or, rather, in one arm, for the right was strapped to her side, as was his left; she was not exactly rosy of face, still there was color in it, and a soft light in her eyes, and a sweet smile on her lips, that robbed Bill of his resentment toward the cat. She fondled the small creature, and came toward his couch; then, bending over him, she deposited the kitten on his chest and kissed him on the lips. Bill choked and gasped.

"You mustn't mind," she said, rosy now, "if I kiss you. The doctor told me. You gave me most of your blood, and I lived. I was well in a day."

Before Bill could formulate an answer the father came in.

"Well," he said cheerfully, "you've waked up, have you? Good! We had our doubts about it; for it took three days. We're almost to Gibraltar, as the mate says."

"That's good," said Bill wearily, "but--is Miss Mayhew all right?"

"Got a hole in her side," answered the father, "and a hole in her arm; but, tell me, you folks. Something happened, and I want to know."

"It was all my fault, daddy," said the girl. "This little cat frightened me, and I think I went crazy again."

"I see," said the father, his face clouding. "I told you, Mr. Flanders, to have no cats on board. Why is this?"

"Why," said Bill, "I'm sorry now, of course, but I found the brute being tormented by a gang of toughs, and brought it with me. I never dreamed that there would be any unpleasant consequences."

"But I knew," said the owner warmly. "This little girl of mine was marked by her mother, who was frightened into insanity by a mad cat. She has gone crazy several times at the sight of a cat."

"But not any more," said the smiling girl. "Come here, kitty, and let me love you." She picked up the kitten, and fondled it. Then the doctor appeared, and looked them all over with a stern, scientific eye.

The girl placed the kitten on Bill's chest, close to his chin, and smilingly bade him pat it. But Bill, with a furious, though not profane, exclamation, struck his former pet from him. The girl picked it up, and consoled it, looking down on Bill with mild disapproval.

"Please pardon me," he said weakly, "but I hate the thing. I cannot stand it."

"Don't worry, young man," said Doctor Calkins. "You'll come around all right, and be as merciful to dumb animals as you have been, while our little girl here is relieved from the obsession of her life. It has never before come into my experience, but I have read about it in my studies--transfusion of blood carries with it transference of psychic qualities. This girl, in taking into her veins some of your blood, has taken your love of cats--I know all about it, because I talked with the mess boy--and you, in giving your blood to her, took something of her obsession. But you will both get over it. Come, Mr. Mayhew, and leave these people alone with the cat."

They went out, and the girl sat beside the weak and helpless man, stroking his face and caressing him for an hour before he spoke a vital word.

"Say," he said, at last. "Tell me, what is your first name?"

"Kitty," she answered.

THE TWINS

My acquaintance with them began, I may say, about fifteen years before their birth; for I had played marbles with their father, made mud pies with their mother, thrashed the former through his school-days, and loved the latter from the beginning to the end--which is not yet. Finally, I had officiated as best man at the wedding.

The twins were as like as two peas, and to preserve their identity the usual expedient was tried of decorating them with ribbons of different hue. But when, at three years of age, they were detected in the very natural act of swapping ribbons, I, as the family physician, was called in; then Jack's identity was fixed with a tattooed dot of india ink on his left arm, and Jim's with a corresponding dot on his right. Their mother was mostly concerned with their pain and protesting squalls, their father with my wonderful ingenuity, and I with the rebellious, yet imperious, thought that, according to the eternal fitness of things, I should have been the father of these two beautiful boys.

Their father was about my age, twenty-five, and a weakling; one who, as a boy, could never catch a ball nor throw one straight; who never learned to swim, and preferred girls for playmates; who, as a youth, could not dress himself without assistance; who never, in his whole lackadaisical life, had an original thought or took the initiative in any proceeding; and why that splendid, healthy-minded, dark-eyed girl of seventeen should choose him out of a host of suitors was beyond my comprehension at the time. Later, I understood; somewhat weakly sexed at that age, but largely endowed with the maternal instinct (she played with dolls until within a year of her marriage), she pitied his helplessness and married him to mother and protect him. And from this pair, so utterly diverse, Mother Nature produced two perfect specimens of humanity, and rested. After their arrival the parents drifted apart, and from sheer incompatibility were divorced when the boys were seven years old. They went to their original homes at opposite sides of the town, each taking a twin; for the asinine judge, unable to decide in favor of either, had, Solomon-like, so conditioned the divorce.

Their grief was heart-rending--equaled only by that of the mother, as I, in my professional relation to each home, had full opportunity to judge. But time softened this grief in all of them, and brought about in the mother a state of mind exceedingly valuable and gratifying to me. In a year from the divorce she became my wife. So far I had observed the development of the twins as a physician, noting that the measles, mumps, croup, and other childhood ailments came to both at the same time, and, as a physician, ascribing it to bodily contagion. But now, still a physician to each, I took note of other concurrent happenings that spoke of mental contagion as well. I was called to Jim late one afternoon by the agitated father, and found him in a strange mental condition, crying and laughing, and again storming in an ecstasy of rage at the house-dog, a gentle, harmless collie and a former pet, against whom he had conceived a violent hatred. He had attacked and nearly killed him with a club.

When I reached home that evening I was regaled by the joyous Jack with an account of his successful battle that afternoon with a mad dog that had attacked him. It was a large, black mongrel, and he had brained it with his ball club. I sounded his emotions. Frightened? Of course; who would not be with a huge mad brute, frothing at the mouth, charging at him? But he had staggered the animal with the first blow, and then had come his courage, his anger, and his furious desire to kill, and save his life. Yes, he had cried, afterward, and was much ashamed of the weakness. But I reassured him on this point, convinced him that strong, brave men sometimes cried under extreme excitement, and in my desire to make the most of the incident in his development, almost overshot the mark. His self-respect became abnormal, and neighboring dogs and small boys suffered, until he was stopped by an experience more salutary than would have been the strapping which his mother and I were seriously contemplating. He attacked another dog, but a sane dog of small size and attending to his business. This dog met the assault bravely and, though suffering keenly from Jack's first blow and unable to injure any living thing larger than a rabbit, offered a strong protest of growls and barks, the moral effect of which was to send the small boy fleeing for home with the small dog snapping at his heels. The neighbors rejoiced, and it was a month before Jack recovered from the humiliation. He did not understand, nor did I until the following day, when his father informed me on the street that the collie, recovered in mind and body, had revenged himself by attacking and biting Jim, who was badly frightened and needed my attention. I could not learn that there was concomitance of time, but I knew that the twins, a mile apart, _shared each other's emotions_.

After a fruitless attempt to get legal transfer of Jim to my own household, I fell back on my growing faith in this sympathy of mind, trusting that a careful training of Jack might have a corresponding influence upon Jim. But in this I hoped too much. No such sympathy is ever as strong as daily and personal contact, and the direct and weakening example of that father's life and words worked powerfully upon the character of the boy. His individuality lessened, and as though this lessening were an invitation, the apparently fortuitous incidents and influences of his life became such as to lessen it still further. He seemed to be looking for trouble, and would attempt feats that he failed to perform, while Jack attempted such as were just within his increasing powers. A boy that Jack had pummeled came around and took revenge on Jim. He would yield to pressure that Jack would resist.

And so they grew farther and farther apart in face, form, and disposition, Jack into a tall, straight, handsome and high-minded young gentleman, Jim into a shifty, cowardly, stoop-shouldered and cad-like sort of a youth, without friends, ambition, or ideals, whose backwardness in study brought him into the lowest class of the town's one high school as Jack entered the highest. In this year of schooling they met for the first time since the separation, but they met as strangers. They knew they were brothers, of course, but carefully avoided reference to the fact, and soon avoided each other. Between them there was no outward sympathy nor community of interest, the unwise but cast-iron pride of the mother finding expression in Jack's attitude, and the cowardice of the negative father in Jim's.

Jack graduated with honor, and, confronted with another four years of study at college, yet ardent, ambitious, anxious to begin life's battle as a man, chose a career that satisfied both conditions--a life in the navy. He arranged matters himself, secured an appointment to the Naval Academy, and left us. And on that day, Jim, friendless in school and stubborn, was dismissed from school for negligence in his studies. Then, as though his evil star were now at its zenith, his father, having lost all his inherited property in unwise speculation, took him away, where I could not learn; but a year later we read the list of lost in a coasting-steamship wreck, and in this list were the names of these two.

I now had to deal with a half-crazed woman, who spoke little and did not weep, but whose strained face and whitening hair told of the strength of that misplaced pride and outraged mother-love, suppressed for so many years. Nothing that I could say or do availed against the aroused craving for the neglected boy. She resisted my oft-repeated suggestions that Jim was gone, and that there was nothing to do but to make the best of it. She refused to be resigned, for she could not bring herself to believe that he was dead. She insisted that he was alive, and that some day he would come back.

This continued through the years, while her hair became whiter and her voice nearly silent, while Jack finished his course and sea term, to be then retired against his will because of the preponderance of officers in a wooden navy too small for them, and while my practice and my health left me under the strain of caring for the queenly woman I loved. Then Jack, a born free-lance who would have entered any navy in the world had a war been on, did the next best thing for him; he secured command of a large, new merchant ship, and made a successful voyage, perhaps the youngest and probably the best educated master in the merchant marine. When he returned my nerves were as bad as his mother's, my practice was gone, my future uncertain; and so we accepted his invitation to make a voyage with him, I with the listlessness of all neurasthenics, my wife with an avidity which surprised us. She brightened at once.

And now this story really begins.