seas studded with islands like
emeralds! Velvet nights spangled with flaming stars!

The wanderlust seized on Allen Drew more fiercely than before, and his
heart sickened with longing.

"It must be wonderful to see all those places," he ventured.

"Huh?" said the captain, looking at him blankly.

"I mean," explained the landsman, half ashamed of his enthusiasm, "that
everything is so different--so old--so mysterious--so beautiful----.
You know what I mean," he ended lamely.

The captain sniffed.

"Pooty enough, I s'pose," he grunted. "But I never pay no 'tention to
that. What with layin' my course an' loadin' my cargo an' followin'
owners orders, my mind's what ye might call pooty well took up."

The irony of it all! The captain who did not care a copper for romance
was going into the very thick of it, while he, Allen Drew, who panted
for it, was doomed to forego it forever. Of what use to have the soul
of a Viking, if your job is that of a chandler's clerk?

The captain applied himself to the decanter again and Drew roused from
his momentary reverie.

"Well," he observed, as he took his hat from the table on which he had
thrown it, "I'll keep a sharp eye out for that windlass and see that it
is shipped to you the minute it reaches us from the factory."

"All right," responded the captain, rising to his feet. "I'll be
lookin' for it. I wouldn't dare risk the old one fur another v'yage."

They shook hands, and Drew climbed the stairs, crossed the deck and
went out on to the wharf.

The river was a scene almost as busy as that which lay behind him in
the crowded streets of the metropolis. Snorting tugs were darting to
and fro, lines of barges were being convoyed toward the Sound,
ferryboats were leaving and entering their slips, tramp steamers were
poking their way up from Quarantine, and a huge ocean liner was moving
majestically toward the Narrows and the open sea beyond.

Drew took off his hat and let the soft breeze cool his brow. Things
seemed hopelessly out of gear. He felt like a trapped animal. So he
imagined a squirrel might feel, turning the wheel endlessly in the
narrow limits of its cage. Or, to make the image human, his thoughts
wandered to the shorn and blinded Samson grinding his tale of corn in
the Philistine town.

He found himself envying a man who leaned against a neighboring spile.
He was a tall, spare fellow, dressed a little better than the common
run of sailors, but unmi