e Strand, getting a
guinea a day expenses, and we all swore black was white, and the owners,
our owners, lost the case. They had already lost the ship, so we were
told to go home and wait a few weeks until they could get hold of
another one cheap. Of course most of the crowd joined other companies,
but I went off to Waterloo to inflict myself on my people in Hampshire
again. And it was at the bookstall that I saw Jack staring at the
illustrated papers and jangling the money in his pockets. He was in a
very shabby condition, I may tell you. His chin was a rich growth of
black stubble, his round protuberant brown eyes were blood-shot, and his
clothes had been slept in, I'm sure. 'Thank God it's you, Fred,' he
splutters out, for he jumped like a cat when I touched him. We went into
the bar and he told me how he had fallen on such evil days. His ship
had been away nearly a year on the west coast of South America. He
hadn't spent a pound in the whole trip. No going ashore, nobody to speak
to, nothing. And here he'd come into London River and paid off. It was
easy to see what had happened. A young hot-blooded man with three or
four hundred pounds in his pocket, and no decent friends in town. His
contempt for himself was rather amusing. 'Take me away, Fred,' he
implored. 'Take me somewhere where I shan't be tempted.'

"'The fact is,' I said, as we made for the barber shop, 'you ought to
get married, Jack.'

"'Who'd have a drunken old swab like me?' he inquired, sadly. 'You know
I've been brought up common.'

"He was very contrite, but eventually, when he had got himself spruced
up, changed his clothes and fetched his dunnage out of the terrible
little hotel near Waterloo station where he had been lured, he began to
take a less austere view of himself. He was determined, however, never
to wallow in the mire again. He was a ship-master. His plump, rosy face
grew pale and drawn at the possibilities which he had risked. He was a
typical British sailor man. Riotous living was really distasteful to
him, but he had no idea of getting rid of his money in any other way.
However, I missed that train and took him down with me to Hampshire
next day. It was one of the great deeds of my career. He fell in love
the very first week."

"But what has all this to do with Captain Macedoine and this Island of
Ipsilon?" enquired the small, precise voice of the Paymaster.

For a moment there was no reply. It was very dark under the awning now,