The steamer by which they were going to cross was
not an ordinary packet-boat, but a cargo-boat carrying vegetable ivory.
For Channel voyagers they were going to be a long while at sea, calling
at Havre and afterwards rounding Cherbourg and Brest, before they
reached St. Corentin, the port of their destination at the mouth of the
Loire. It was rough weather all the way to Havre, and Michael was too
ill to notice much the crew or the boat or any of the other boys.
However, the excitement of disembarking at Havre about midnight put an
end to sea-sickness, for it was very thrilling at such an hour to follow
Mr. Lodge and Mr. Vernon through the gloomy wharves and under their
dripping archways. When after this strange walk, they came to a wide
square and saw cafes lighted up and chairs and tables in the open air
before the doors, Michael felt that life was opening out on a vista of
hitherto unimagined possibilities. They all sat down at midnight,
wrapped up in their travelling coats and not at all too much tired to
sip grenadine sucree and to crunch Petit Beurre biscuits. Michael
thought grenadine sucree was just as nice as it looked and turned to
Hands, a skull-headed boy who was sitting next to him:

"I say, this is awfully decent, isn't it?"

"Rather," squeaked Hands in his high voice. "Much nicer than
Pineappleade."

After they had stayed there for a time, watching isolated passers-by
slouch across the wind-blown square, Mr. Lodge announced they must hurry
back to the boat and get a good night's sleep. Back they went between
the damp walls of the shadowy wharves, plastered with unfamiliar
advertizements, until they reached their boat and went to bed. In the
morning when Michael woke up, the steamer was pitching and rolling:
everything in the cabin was lying in a jumble on the floor, and
Rutherford and Hargreaves were sitting up in their bunks wideawake.
Rutherford was the oldest boy of the party and he was soon going in for
his Navy examination; but he had been so sea-sick the day before that
Michael felt that he was just as accessible as the others and was no
longer afraid to talk to this hero without being spoken to first.
Rutherford, having been so sick, felt bound to put on a few airs of
grandeur; but he was pleasant enough and very full of information about
many subjects which had long puzzled Michael. He spoke with authority on
life and death and birth and love and marriage, so that when Michael
emerged into the