rhythm
with discipline, valour, and martial fire; thrilling into the spaces
of the night in strange contrast to the spirit of peace that breathed
in the sweet concord of the sailors' chanting of evening hymns.

"What a funny lingo!" said Alice, as the chaplain's voice was again
heard in prayer. Her laugh rang out, loud and scornful, insulting the
solemnity and beauty of the scene. Morgan instinctively began to move
on, pained to think that these sojourners in English waters might deem
they were being scoffed at.

"It wasn't at them I was laughing," she explained, as if aware she had
offended him. "Something came into my mind that happened just at that
spot. It's so funny that I can't help laughing every time I think of
it. If you're very, very good, perhaps I may tell you."

She looked up at him, wagging her head about to indicate her last
sentence had been intended playfully. Morgan expressed a desire to
hear it, in a sort of indifferent murmur.

"Well, there was a fellow I let dance with me three or four times, and
I went for a walk with him twice or so. Then he began to get a bit
cheeky, and so I thought I'd put him in his place. I wouldn't take any
notice of him for a long time, and when we passed him in the street I
pretended not to know him. At last one day he comes up to me and he
says: 'Mary, I can't stand it any longer. If you won't speak to me
again I'll go and drown myself.' And then he begged so hard that at
last I promised to go for a walk with him in the evening. Well, I kept
my promise, and we strolled along here. And just at that very spot we
stood still to look at the harbour. 'John,' said I, 'there's the
water; now drown yourself.'"

Again she laughed immoderately at the recollection of this brilliant
_jeu d'esprit_ and her admirer's discomfiture.

But the _jeu d'esprit_ kept echoing oddly through Morgan's brain.

"There's the water. Now drown yourself!"

CHAPTER II.

Morgan found the Monday infinitely easier to get through. For the
members of the family were absorbed in the duties of life, so that he
was left much to himself. Alice and Mary kept the accounts and served
behind the counter in the stationery shop. In a workshop at the back
Simon Kettering, Mark, four journeymen and one apprentice stood "at
case," whilst in the basement two antiquated printing machines rumbled
on, worked by a small gas-engine. There was also a Columbian press for
pulling posters and a platen machine for