mber that well. I had been knocking about Vesuvius
for a bit, keeping very bad company, which, nevertheless, behaved very
well to me. But finally there was a row with knives, which rather
sickened me of the Vesuvians; so I shipped for Constantinople and fell
in with a very nice old chap on board. He took me on at his contraband
job. I didn't get very much money, but I got some, and saw a deal of
life. When it was over I went to Greece. I like the Greeks. They are
a fine people."

"What did you do in Greece?" she insisted, not interested in the
fineness of the people.

"Blasting, first," he said. "They were making the railway from Larissa
through Tempe. That was a dangerous job, because the rock breaks so
queerly. You never know when it has finished. I had seen a good deal
of it in South America, so I butted in, and was taken on. Then I did
some mining at Lavrion, and captained a steamer that carried mails
among the islands. That was the best time I had. You see, I like
responsibility, and I got it. Everything else was tame--out there, I
mean....

"I got into Government service at Corfu and stopped there six years or
more ... I was all sorts of things--lighthouse-keeper, inspector of
marine works, harbour-master ... And then my wicked old father (I must
tell you about him some day. You could write a book about him) up and
died--in his bed of all places in the world, and left me a good deal
of money. That was the ruin of me. I really might have done something
if it hadn't been for that. Strange thing! He turned me out of the
house in a rage one day, and had neither seen me nor written me a
letter from my seventeenth to my thirtieth birthday, when he died--or
thereabouts. But at the last, when he was on his bed of death, he
rolled himself over and said to the priest, 'There's Jimmy out at his
devilry among the haythen Turks,' he says. 'Begob, that was a fine
boy, and I'll leave him a plum.' And so he did. I wish he hadn't. I
was making my hundred and fifty in Corfu and was the richest man in
the place. And I liked the life."

"That was where you had so many wives," she reminded him.

"So it was. Well, perhaps I needn't assure you that the number has
been exaggerated. I've very nearly had some wives, but there was
always something at the last minute. There was a girl at Valletta, I
remember--a splendid girl with the figure of a young Venus, and a
tragic face and great eyes that seemed to drown you in dark. Lady
Macbe