neglect such a
heaven-directed opportunity to meet this man on his own ground and
obtain some light upon his career. How should I begin? Should I say to
him, "Look here, it is very nice, no doubt; but we, your neighbours, are
simply crazy to know who and what you are?" That might strike him in
various ways. He might take offence, and one could not blame him. He
might see humour in it, and a proof of the contemptible meanness of
human nature. I decided that I lacked courage to blurt out my desire
that way. He was so very much like myself that I could not rid myself of
the notion that he might prefer a milder way of approach. And as I
sorted out my stock of diplomacy he spoke of the matter himself.

"You are a seaman, I understand?" I remarked. He gave me a quick glance.

"I go to sea," he replied, "if that is what you mean. Yes, in the legal
phrase of the Board of Trade, I'm a seaman, and my number is _Three nine
five, eight nine three_." He laughed shortly and continued to look out
towards New York.

"A picturesque life," I hazarded, regretting my total ignorance of it.
Again he looked at me and laughed.

"You think so?" he queried. "You think so?"

"I speak from book knowledge only," I said. "It is usually described in
those terms." We began to walk to and fro.

"Well," he admitted unexpectedly, "and so it is. I don't doubt that to
anyone just looking at it, you understand, it is as you say,
'picturesque,' But when you have a number like _Three nine five, eight
nine three_, you have another view of it."

"You have been for a long voyage?"

"Oh no," he said; "Mediterranean and back, that's all."

I began to realize something of the man from this. I had no knowledge of
the sea, but I certainly had a mind trained by years of observation and
reflection to deduce certain definite data affecting human nature. And I
realized dimly that a man who regarded a run round the Mediterranean and
back across the Atlantic as a trivial episode scarcely worthy of
mention, might have views on literature and art radically at variance
with my own.

"I should have thought," I remarked, "that you would have made your home
there rather than here."

"There's some who do," he said. "Lots of the Anchor Line men do. But
personally I'd rather be here."

"It is very like England," I agreed, as he broke in.

"Sure," he said. "I was just thinking as I came up the hill. I come from
Hertfordshire myself. Very like the Northern Heights."