at it was." The gangway was hauled up. The tugs began to move the
big steamer away from us, a process so slow that the daylight between
us and the ship increased imperceptibly.

On my way home I paused by the shop which sells such antiques as old
spring mattresses, china dogs, portable baths, dumb-bells, and even the
kind of bedroom furniture which one would never have supposed was
purchasable at second-hand. But lower, much lower in the shopkeeper's
estimate than even such commodities--thrown into a bin because they
were rubbish, and yet not quite valueless--was a mass of odd volumes.
_The First Principles of Algebra_, _Acts Relating to Pawnbrokers_, and
_Jessica's First Prayer_, were discovered in that order. The next was
_Superstitions of the Sea_.

I am not superstitious. I have never met a man who was. And look at
the ships in dock today, without figure-heads, with masts that are only
the support of derricks and the aerials of wireless, and with science
and an official certificate of competency even in the galley! Could
anything happen in such ships to bring one to awe and wonder? The dark
of the human mind is now lighted, one may say, with electricity. We
have no shadows to make us hesitate. That book of sea superstitions
was on my table, some weeks later, and a sailor, who gave up trading to
the East to patrol mine-fields for three years, and who has never been
known to lose any time when in doubt through wasting it on a secret
propitiatory gesture, picked up the book, smiling a little
superciliously, lost his smile when examining it, and then asked if he
might borrow it.

We are not superstitious, now we are sure a matter may be mysterious
only when we have not had the leisure to test it in the right way, but
we have our private reservations. There is a ship's doctor, who has
been called a hard case by those who know him, for he has grown grey
and serious in watching humanity from the Guinea Coast to the South
Seas. He only smiles now when listening to a religious or a political
discussion, and might not be supposed to have any more regard for the
mysteries than you would find in the _Cold Storage Gazette_. When he
is home again we go to the British Museum. He always takes me there.
It is one of his weaknesses. I invited him, when last we were there,
to let us search out a certain exhibit from Egypt about which curious
stories are whispered. "No you don't," he exclaimed peremptorily. He
gave