And now, Mr.Dodd, I've stretched a point for you; you can see I'm dead tired; so just you stretch away back to your bunk again." And with this attempt at geniality, his teeth would settle hard down on his cigar, and he would pass his spell below staring and blinking at the cabin lamp through a cloud of tobacco smoke.

He has told me since that he was happy, which I should never have divined.

"You see," he said, "the wind we had was never anything out of the way; but the sea was really nasty, the schooner wanted a lot of humouring, and it was clear from the glass that we were close to some dirt.

We might be running out of it, or we might be running right crack into it.

Well, there's always something sublime about a big deal like that; and it kind of raises a man in his own liking.