the swindling practices of the boarding-house
crimps. It had never struck me it would apply to everybody alike no
matter what the motive, because I believed then that people on shore did
their work with care and foresight.

"I was confounded at the idea, but Mr Powell made me soon see that an
Act of Parliament hasn't any sense of its own. It has only the sense
that's put into it; and that's precious little sometimes. He didn't
mind helping a young man to a ship now and then, he said, but if we kept
on coming constantly it would soon get about that he was doing it for
money.

"`A pretty thing that would be: the Senior Shipping Master of the Port
of London hauled up in a police court and fined fifty pounds,' says he.
`I've another four years to serve to get my pension. It could be made
to look very black against me and don't you make any mistake about it,'
he says.

"And all the time with one knee well up he went on swinging his other
leg like a boy on a gate and looking at me very straight with his
shining eyes. I was confounded I tell you. It made me sick to hear him
imply that somebody would make a report against him.

"`Oh!'--I asked shocked, `who would think of such a scurvy trick, sir?'
I was half disgusted with him for having the mere notion of it.

"`Who?' says he, speaking very low. `Anybody. One of the office
messengers maybe. I've risen to be the Senior of this office and we are
all very good friends here, but don't you think that my colleague that
sits next to me wouldn't like to go up to this desk by the window four
years in advance of the regulation time? Or even one year for that
matter. It's human nature.'

"I could not help turning my head. The three fellows who had been
skylarking when I came in were now talking together very soberly, and
the long-necked chap was going on with his writing still. He seemed to
me the most dangerous of the lot. I saw him side-face and his lips were
set very tight. I had never looked at mankind in that light before.
When one's young human nature shocks one. But what startled me most was
to see the door I had come through open slowly and give passage to a
head in a uniform cap with a Board of Trade badge. It was that blamed
old doorkeeper from the hall. He had run me to earth and meant to dig
me out too. He walked up the office smirking craftily, cap in hand.

"`What is it, Symons?' asked Mr Powell.

"`I was only wondering where this 'ere gentlema