even now on the
upward ladder.

"Jack Wilson," said the sailor to himself, "Jack Wilson, you're a fool!"

Having several times delivered himself of this sentiment, always with an
increasing heartiness of self-contempt, he slapped on some more paint
and began to whistle. But the whistle died away again, for a little
house was peeping through the trees at him, and he remembered how he had
seen it from the road, embowered in flowers, with the river flowing at
its foot, a cool, snug, inviting little house, with green blinds, a
pigeon cote, and a flight of steps descending to the bathing pool. How
happy, no doubt, that fellar that owned it--a fellar with a regular job;
a wife, maybe, and kids to swing in that there contraption under the
mango; a fellar, as like as not, no better than himself; and yet----!

"Jack," he said huskily to himself, "how the hell have you missed it
all?"

"Women and drink," came the answer. "Women and drink, Jack, my boy."

In the course of his long and wandering life how often had he been paid
off; how often had he felt his pockets heavy with the gold so arduously
toiled for; how often had he vowed to himself that this time he would
keep it! And had he kept it? Never!

There had been windfalls, too; money that had come easily; double
handfuls of money that he had tossed in the air like a child, to see it
glitter. Sixteen hundred dollars from a lucky whaling cruise; seven
hundred dollars, his share for salvaging the derelict steamer _Shore
Ditch_; sixty-six pounds eight and fourpence that the passengers had
raised for him when he saved the girl at Durban--that, and a gold medal,
and a fancy certificate with the British and American flags intertwined.
That medal! It had gone for a round of drinks and five dollars for a
wench. And the fancy certificate! Thunder! he had left it on the
_Huascar_ when he had taken leg-bail of the Chilanean navy.

"Women and drink, Jack Wilson!"

That's where it has gone, every dollar of it. To the sharks and
bloodsuckers of seaport towns; to the tawdry sisterhood that spun their
nets for Jack ashore; to those women that wheedled the seaman's last
cent, and laughed to see him starving in the streets. It was for these
he worked, then! It was for these he was even this minute painting the
bloody bark; for rumsellers and harlots! He repeated the words to
himself as he looked at his torn nails and blackened hands. For
these--by God, for these! He felt within himself