verbal frankness that was appalling, and
with a distinctness which even pricked the misty senses of the
slumberer, who peevishly turned in his sleep and stuttered out a curse
at me to keep still.

As the human voice called me back from my contemplation of that infernal
old bird my lowered eyes looked on the doorway. The door was wide open,
and a girl stood framed in the gap, gazing at me. Lord, how the blood
rushed into my face with wonder and delight, for I thought then that I
had never seen anything before so beautiful! Indeed, I think now that
of that kind of beauty she was as perfect as a woman could wish to be,
or a man could wish to have her. She smiled a little into my crimson,
spell-bound face, wished me good-morning pleasantly, gave a kind of
little whistle of recognition to the bird, who never left off screaming
and yelling his vociferous desire for kisses, and then, swinging the
door behind her, crossed the floor, and, passing into the parlour,
disappeared from my gaze.

Immediately the parrot's clamour came to a dead pause. The semi-wakened
sailor dropped into his sodden snooze again, and all was quiet. I waited
for some little time with my eyes on the parlour door, but it did not
open again; and as no one came in from outside, and I needed no more
either of drink or victual, I felt that I must needs be trudging. So I
drained my can to the black eyes of my beauty, clucked at the parrot,
who merely swung one crimson eye round as if he were taking aim and
glared ferociously, signed a farewell to the parlour door, and passed
out into the world again. The Skull and Spectacles had gained a devoted
customer.

Ah, me! I went there a world of times after that. I am afraid my poor
mother thought me a sad rogue, for I would slip away from the shop for a
whole afternoon together, on the plea of needing a walk; but my walk
always led me to that terrible inn. I soon became a familiar figure to
its ill-favoured master and his beautiful niece. The landlord of the
Skull and Spectacles had been a seaman in his youth, and told tales of
the sea to guests who paid their score. He had a cadet brother who was a
seaman still, and who drifted out of longshore knowledge for great gaps
of time, and came back again liker to mahogany than he had been before,
a thought more abundant in blasphemy, and a great deal richer in gold
pieces with the heads of every king in Christendom stamped upon them.

It was this wanderer's daughter wh