the after
part of the ship, reserved for intermediate passengers. As he went he
hesitated, came to the side of the vessel, looked down at the tender for
a moment, cast his eyes to where the anchor was being weighed, made as
if he would go back to the tender, then, seeing that the ladder was
now drawn up, sighed, and passed on to the second-class companion-way,
through which he disappeared.

I stood commenting idly to myself upon this incident, which, slight
though it was, appeared to have significance of a kind, when Hungerford,
the fifth officer, caught me slyly by the arm and said, "Lucky fellow!
Nothing to do but watch the world go by. I wish I had you in the North
Atlantic on a whaler, or in the No Man's Sea on a pearl-smack for a
matter of thirty days."

"What would come of that, Hungerford?" said I.

"An exchange of matter for mind, Marmion; muscle for meditation, physics
for philosophy."

"You do me too much honour; at present I've neither mind, meditation,
nor philosophy; I am simply vegetating."

"Which proves you to be demoralised. I never saw a surgeon on a ship
who wasn't. They began with mind--more or less--they ate the fruits of
indolence, got precious near being sinful as well as indolent, and
ended with cheap cynicism, with the old 'quid refert'--the thing Hamlet
plagiarised in his, 'But it is no matter.'"

"Isn't this an unusual occupation for you, Hungerford--this Swift-like
criticism?"

"Swift-like, is it? You see, I've practised on many of your race,
Marmion, and I have it pat now. You are all of two classes--those who
sicken in soul and leave after one trip, and those who make another trip
and are lost."

"Lost? How?"

Hungerford pressed his fingers hard on my breastbone, looked at me
enigmatically from under his well-hung brows, and replied: "Brains put
out to seed, morals put out to vegetate--that's 'lost.'"

"What about fifth officers?"

"Fifth officers work like navvies, and haven't time for foolishness.
They've got to walk the bridge, and practise the boats, and be
responsible for luggage--and here I am talking to you like an infallible
undergraduate, while the lascars are in endless confusion with a
half-dozen pieces of baggage, and the first officer foams because I'm
not there to set them right. I leave you to your dreams. Good-bye."

Hungerford was younger than myself, but he knew the world, and I was
flattered by these uncommon remarks, because he talked to no one else
on