their skipper's
code.

But now--now it was different. Why shouldn't he sleep in the daytime?
There was nothing else for him to do. He had no business to transact, no
owners to report to, no vessel to load or unload or to fit for sea. He
had heard the doctor's whisper--not meant for his ears--that his legs
might never be right again, and the word "might" had, he believed, been
substituted for one of much less ambiguous meaning. No, all he was fit
for, he reflected bitterly, was to sit in the sun and sleep, like an old
dog with the rheumatism. He sighed, settled himself upon the bench and
closed his eyes.

But he opened them again almost at once. During that very brief interval
of darkness there had flashed before his mind a picture of a small park
in New York as he had once seen it upon a summer Sunday afternoon. The
park walks had been bordered with rows of benches and upon each bench
slumbered at least one human derelict who, apparently, realized his
worthlessness and had given up the fight. Captain Kendrick sat upright
on the settee, beneath the locust tree. Was he, too, giving
up--surrendering to Fate? No, by the Lord, he was not! And he was not
going to drop off to sleep on that settee like one of those tramps on a
park bench.

He rose to his feet, picked up his cane, and started to walk--somewhere.
Direction made little difference, so long as he kept awake and kept
going. There was a path leading off between the raspberry and currant
bushes, and slowly, but stubbornly, he limped along that path. The path
ended at a gate in a white picket fence. The gate was unlatched and
there was an orchard on the other side of it. Captain Sears opened the
gate and limped on under the apple trees. They were old trees and large
and the shade they cast was cool and pleasant. The soft green slope
beneath them tempted him strongly. He was beginning to realize that
those shaky legs of his were tiring in this, the longest walk they had
attempted since the accident. He had a mind to sit down upon the bank
beneath the apple trees and rest. Then he remembered the mental picture
of the tramps on the park benches and stubbornly refused to yield.
Leaning more heavily upon his cane, he limped on.

The path emerged from beneath the apple trees, ascended a little rise
and disappeared around the shoulder of a high thick clump of lilacs.
Kendrick, tiring more and more rapidly, plodded on. His suffering limbs
were, so to speak, shrieking for