lurk in lodgings at
the village dressmaker's. I have one room at the back of the house, its
dormer window looking over a grass plot and a chicken coop. Fortunately
the cock is as morose and reserved an individual as I am myself, without
my sense of humour--or else he's henpecked. He never opens his head till
it's necessary to salute the sunrise; and the hens consider it bad form
to boast loudly because a mere egg has been given to the world. For this
accommodation I pay four dollars a week, and ten cents a day for having
a rubber bath filled. Breakfast of bread, butter, and coffee is brought
to my room by a timid fawn of a dressmaker's daughter who does me the
honour of fearing and admiring me, I surmise. I pay twenty cents for her
attendance and admiration. Mine is the simple life, but luxurious
compared with many of my experiences. As to clothes, I am always Hyde,
never Jekyll. It's safer. My hat is the worst thing in hats you ever
beheld, though I have at times surpassed it.

You would think I ought to have plenty of leisure on my hands for the
work I brought from Siberia, but I confess the girl has got between me
and it. Don't waste a smile. No girl born could tempt me to what I
should have to give up for her. Besides, there are a thousand other
obstacles between me and love. If she wastes a few thoughts on me--as
perhaps she does sometimes--it's only curiosity concerning the "Ship's
Mystery." That's what they all called me on board, I heard. But there is
the past, a faded yet beautiful background of early youth--one of the
few really beautiful things in my life. And there is the girl, a radiant
figure in the foreground.

I'm in the house at Kidd's Pines often enough, doing my secretarial work
(a howl of laughter here, please!), to see pretty well all that goes on,
and the demoniac joy I feel in acting as _deus ex machina_ I can't
express to you, because I don't entirely understand it myself. But I
wouldn't be out of this for anything.

Miss Moore has been learning to drive her car. (You know about that
car!) Captain Winston began to give her lessons, but cracked up, as his
wounds aren't thoroughly mended yet. I had half a mind to offer my
services, but thought it would add too much fuel to the fire of
curiosity, so held my peace until--well, several things happened first.
Among them was the coming of Castnet, the chauffeur engaged by Marcel
himself--a Frenchman, too young to be mobilized, but supposed to
unders