"Not many of your nationality in our service, I should think. I never
remember meeting one either before or after I left the sea. Don't
remember ever hearing of one. An inland people, aren't you?"

I said yes--very much so. We were remote from the sea not only by
situation, but also from a complete absence of indirect association, not
being a commercial nation at all, but purely agricultural. He made then
the quaint reflection that it was "a long way for me to come out to
begin a sea life"; as if sea life were not precisely a life in which one
goes a long way from home.

I told him, smiling, that no doubt I could have found a ship much nearer
my native place, but I had thought to myself that if I was to be a
seaman, then I would be a British seaman and no other. It was a matter
of deliberate choice.

He nodded slightly at that; and, as he kept on looking at me
interrogatively, I enlarged a little, confessing that I had spent a
little time on the way in the Mediterranean and in the West Indies. I
did not want to present myself to the British Merchant Service in an
altogether green state. It was no use telling him that my mysterious
vocation was so strong that my very wild oats had to be sown at sea.
It was the exact truth, but he would not have understood the somewhat
exceptional psychology of my sea-going, I fear.

"I suppose you've never come across one of your countrymen at sea. Have
you, now?"

I admitted I never had. The examiner had given himself up to the spirit
of gossiping idleness. For myself, I was in no haste to leave that room.
Not in the least. The era of examinations was over. I would never
again see that friendly man who was a professional ancestor, a sort of
grandfather in the craft. Moreover, I had to wait till he dismissed me,
and of that there was no sign. As he remained silent, looking at me, I
added:

"But I have heard of one, some years ago. He seems to have been a boy
serving his time on board a Liverpool ship, if I am not mistaken."

"What was his name?"

I told him.

"How did you say that?" he asked, puckering up his eyes at the uncouth
sound.

I repeated the name very distinctly.

"How do you spell it?"

I told him. He moved his head at the impracticable nature of that name,
and observed:

"It's quite as long as your own--isn't it?"

There was no hurry. I had passed for master, and I had all the rest of
my life before me to make the best of it. That seemed a long time. I
wen