ved in the signs so
little that I had left my bag at a railway station, miles away.

Three small steamers, the size of tugs, but with upstanding bows and a
sheer suggesting speed and buoyancy, were lying off the fish market, and
mine, the _Windhover_, had the outside berth. I climbed over to her.
Blubber littered her iron deck, and slime drained along her gutters.
Black grits showered from her stack. The smell from her galley, and the
heat from her engine-room casing, were challenging to a stranger. It was
no place for me. The men and porters tramping about their jobs knew
that, and did not order me out of their way. This was Billingsgate, and
there was a tide to be caught. They hustled me out of it. But the
skipper had to be found, for I must know when I had to come aboard. A
perpendicular iron ladder led to her saloon from a hatch, and through
unintelligence and the dark I entered that saloon more precipitously than
was a measure of my eagerness, picked myself up with a coolness which I
can only hope met with the approval of some silent men, watching me, who
sat at a table there, and offered my pass to the man nearest me.

It was the mate. He scrutinized the simple document at unnecessary
length, and with a gravity that was embarrassing. He turned up slowly a
large and weather-beaten sadness, with a grizzled moustache that curled
tightly into his mouth from under a long, thin nose which pointed at me
like a finger. His heavy eyes might have been melancholy or only tired,
and they regarded me as if they sought on my face what they could not
find on my document. I thought he was searching me for the proof of my
sanity. Presently he spoke: "Have you _got_ to come?" he said, and in a
gentle voice that was disconcerting from a figure so masculine. While I
was wondering what was hidden in this question, the ship's master entered
the saloon briskly. He was plump and light. His face was a smooth round
of unctuous red, without a beard, and was mounted upon many folds of
brown woollen scarf, like an attractive pudding on a platter. He looked
at me with amusement, as I have no doubt those lively eyes, with their
brows of arched interest, looked at everything; and his thick grey hair
was curved upwards in a confusion of interrogation marks.

He chuckled. "This is not a passenger ship," he said. "That will have
to be your berth." He pointed to a part of the saloon settee which was
about six feet forward and abo