red that the only way after a run with the harriers
was through the vilest part of the town and among the oozy timbers of
the wharves which formed the kingdom of the Skull and Spectacles.

[Illustration: "SHE HAD ALWAYS A PLEASANT SMILE FOR ME WHEN I CAME."]

But few of the townspeople knew of the Skull and Spectacles. It never
thought to stretch its custom into the higher walks of life. It throve
on its own clients, its high-booted, thick-bearded, shaggy-coated
seamen, whose dealings with the sea were more in the way of smuggling,
buccaneering, scuttling, and marooning than in honest merchandise or the
service of the King. These sea-wolves liked the place famously, and
would have grievously resented the intrusion of the laced waistcoats of
the provincial dandies or the scarlet jackets of the Chisholm Hunt. So
the Skull and Spectacles went its own way, and a very queer way, too,
unheeded and unheeding.

How the girl and I got to be so friendly I scarcely know. It is like
enough that I thought we were more friendly than we really were, and
that the girl took my boyish homage with more indifference than I
guessed for. She had always a pleasant smile for me when I came, and she
was always ready to pass a pleasant word or two with me, even on the
days when the business in the place was at its heaviest, and when the
room was choking fit to burst with the shag-haired sea-fellows.

But there were times, too, better times for me, or worse, it may be,
when the Skull and Spectacles was almost deserted; when all its wonted
customers were away smuggling, or buccaneering, or cutting throats, or
crimping, or following whatever was their special occupation in life.

In such lonely times the girl was willing enough to spend half an hour
or more in speech with me. Of course, I fell in love with her, like the
donkey that I was, and worshipped the rotting boards of the Skull and
Spectacles because she was pleased to walk upon them. Her speech was all
of strange lands, and it fed my frenzy as dry wood feeds a fire. Her
people were all sea-people, her talk was all sea-talk, her words were
all sea-words. It was a strange rapture to me to sit and listen while
she spoke of the things that were dearest to my heart and to watch her
while she spoke. Then I used to feel a wild, foolish longing, which I
had never the courage to carry out, to tell her how beautiful she
was--as if she needed to be told that by me!--and how madly I loved her.
All