led a "real writing man." He gazed at him as at a
superior being. Captain Jim knew that Anne wrote, but he had never
taken that fact very seriously. Captain Jim thought women were
delightful creatures, who ought to have the vote, and everything else
they wanted, bless their hearts; but he did not believe they could
write.

"Jest look at A Mad Love," he would protest. "A woman wrote that and
jest look at it--one hundred and three chapters when it could all have
been told in ten. A writing woman never knows when to stop; that's the
trouble. The p'int of good writing is to know when to stop."

"Mr. Ford wants to hear some of your stories, Captain Jim" said Anne.
"Tell him the one about the captain who went crazy and imagined he was
the Flying Dutchman."

This was Captain Jim's best story. It was a compound of horror and
humor, and though Anne had heard it several times she laughed as
heartily and shivered as fearsomely over it as Mr. Ford did. Other
tales followed, for Captain Jim had an audience after his own heart.
He told how his vessel had been run down by a steamer; how he had been
boarded by Malay pirates; how his ship had caught fire; how he helped a
political prisoner escape from a South African republic; how he had
been wrecked one fall on the Magdalens and stranded there for the
winter; how a tiger had broken loose on board ship; how his crew had
mutinied and marooned him on a barren island--these and many other
tales, tragic or humorous or grotesque, did Captain Jim relate. The
mystery of the sea, the fascination of far lands, the lure of
adventure, the laughter of the world--his hearers felt and realised
them all. Owen Ford listened, with his head on his hand, and the First
Mate purring on his knee, his brilliant eyes fastened on Captain Jim's
rugged, eloquent face.

"Won't you let Mr. Ford see your life-book, Captain Jim?" asked Anne,
when Captain Jim finally declared that yarn-spinning must end for the
time.

"Oh, he don't want to be bothered with THAT," protested Captain Jim,
who was secretly dying to show it.

"I should like nothing better than to see it, Captain Boyd," said Owen.
"If it is half as wonderful as your tales it will be worth seeing."

With pretended reluctance Captain Jim dug his life-book out of his old
chest and handed it to Owen.

"I reckon you won't care to wrastle long with my old hand o' write. I
never had much schooling," he observed carelessly. "Just wrote that
t