t once the senior pilot arose in his mighty bulk and began to struggle
into his coat, with awe-inspiring upheavals. The stranger and I hurried
impulsively to his assistance, and directly we laid our hands on him he
became perfectly quiescent. We had to raise our arms very high, and
to make efforts. It was like caparisoning a docile elephant. With a
"Thanks, gentlemen," he dived under and squeezed himself through the
door in a great hurry.

We smiled at each other in a friendly way.

"I wonder how he manages to hoist himself up a ship's side-ladder,"
said the man in tweeds; and poor Jermyn, who was a mere North Sea
pilot, without official status or recognition of any sort, pilot only by
courtesy, groaned.

"He makes eight hundred a year."

"Are you a sailor?" I asked the stranger, who had gone back to his
position on the rug.

"I used to be till a couple of years ago, when I got married," answered
this communicative individual. "I even went to sea first in that very
ship we were speaking of when you came in."

"What ship?" I asked, puzzled. "I never heard you mention a ship."

"I've just told you her name, my dear sir," he replied. "The Apse
Family. Surely you've heard of the great firm of Apse & Sons,
shipowners. They had a pretty big fleet. There was the Lucy Apse, and
the Harold Apse, and Anne, John, Malcolm, Clara, Juliet, and so
on--no end of Apses. Every brother, sister, aunt, cousin, wife--and
grandmother, too, for all I know--of the firm had a ship named after
them. Good, solid, old-fashioned craft they were, too, built to carry
and to last. None of your new-fangled, labour-saving appliances in
them, but plenty of men and plenty of good salt beef and hard tack put
aboard--and off you go to fight your way out and home again."

The miserable Jermyn made a sound of approval, which sounded like a
groan of pain. Those were the ships for him. He pointed out in doleful
tones that you couldn't say to labour-saving appliances: "Jump lively
now, my hearties." No labour-saving appliance would go aloft on a dirty
night with the sands under your lee.

"No," assented the stranger, with a wink at me. "The Apses didn't
believe in them either, apparently. They treated their people well--as
people don't get treated nowadays, and they were awfully proud of their
ships. Nothing ever happened to them. This last one, the Apse Family,
was to be like the others, only she was to be still stronger, still
safer, still more roomy