siting him after discovering in what place he had secluded himself;
but there he stays with his books and his camera, his pubs and his
lightermen, Jews, Chinamen, sailors, and dock-labourers. Occasionally a
missionary from the studios of Hempstead or Chelsea goes down to sort
out Hammond from his surroundings, and to look him over for damage,
when found.

"Did I ever tell you about Jabberjee?" Hammond asked me that afternoon.

No, he hadn't. Some of Hammond's work, which he had been showing me,
was scattered over the floor, and he stepped among the litter and came
and looked through the window with me. "A funny thing happened to me
here," he said, "the other evening. A pal of mine died. The bills which
advertise for the recovery of his body--you can see 'em in any pub
about here--call him Joseph Cherry, commonly called Ginger. He was a
lighterman, you know. There was a sing-song for the benefit of his wife
and kids round at the George and Dragon, and I was going.

"On my way I stopped to look in at my favourite pawnshop. Do you know
the country about here? Well, you have to mind your eye. You never know
what will turn up. I never knew such a place. Not all of Limehouse gets
into the Directory, not by a lot. It is bound on the east by China, on
the north by Greenland, on the south by Cape Horn, and on the west by
London Bridge.

"The main road near here is the foreshore of London. There's no doubt
the sea beats on it--unless you are only a Chelsea chap, with your eyes
bunged up with paint. All sorts of things drift along. All sorts of
wreckage. It's like finding a cocoanut or a palm hole stranded in a
Cornish cove. The stories I hear--one of you writer fellers ought to
come and stay here, only I suppose you are too busy writing about
things that really matter. You are like the bright youths in the art
schools, drawing plaster casts till they don't know life when they see
it.

"Well, about this pawnshop. It's a sort of pocket--you know those
places on the beach where a lot of flotsam strands--oceanic
treasure-trove. I suppose the currents, for some reason sailors could
explain, eddy round this pawnshop and leave things there. That pawnshop
is the luckiest corner along our beach, and I stopped to turn over the
sea litter.

"Of course, there was a lot of chronometers, and on top of a pile of
'em was a carved cocoanut. South Sea Islands, I suppose. Full of
curious involuted lines--a mist of lines--with a face peering