left anywhere save a keg (of nails) and
Professor Benis Hamilton Spence sitting upon it. Around him was nothing
but a living, pulsing whiteness, which pushed momentarily nearer.

It was interesting. But it was really very cold. The professor, who had
suffered much from sciatica owing to an injury of the left leg,
remembered that he had been told by his medical man never to allow
himself to shiver; and here he was, shivering violently without so much
as asking his own leave. And the fog crept closer. He put out his hands
to push it back--and immediately his hands were lost too. "Really,"
murmured the professor, "this is most interesting!" Nevertheless, he
reclaimed his hands and placed them firmly in his coat pockets.

He began to wish that he had stayed with Mr. Johnston in the boat shed,
pending the arrival of the launch which, so certain letters in his
pocket informed him, would leave Johnston's wharf at 5 o'clock, or
there-abouts, Mondays and Fridays. Mr. Johnston had felt very uncertain
about this. "Though she does happen along off and on," he said
optimistically, "and she might come today. Not," he added with
commendable caution, "that I'd call old Doc. Farr's boat a 'launch'
myself."

"What," asked Professor Spence, "would you call her yourself?"

"Don't know as I can just hit on a name," said Mr. Johnston. "Doesn't
come natural to me to be free with language."

It had been pleasant enough on the wharf at first and certainly it had
been worth something to see the fog come in. Its incredible advance,
wave upon wave of massed and silent whiteness, had held him spellbound.
While he had thought it still far off, it was upon him--around him,
behind him, everywhere!

But perhaps it would go as quickly as it had come.

He had heard that this is sometimes a characteristic of fog.
Fortunately he had already selected a keg upon which to sit, so with a
patient fatalism, product of a brief but lurid career in Flemish
trenches, he resigned himself to wait. The keg was dry, that was
something, and if he spread the newspaper in his pocket over the most
sciatic part of the shrapneled leg he might escape with nothing more
than twinges.

How beautiful it was--this salt shroud from the sea! How it eddied and
funneled and whorled, now massing thick like frosted glass, now
thinning to a web of tissue. Suddenly, while he watched, a lane broke
through. He saw clearly the piles at the wharf's end, a glimpse of dark
water, and,