still was one then!)

Tommy was passing through the arcade of the Pennsylvania Station when
his eye fell upon the book shop there. He was startled to see in the
window a picture of the Scotch engineer--his best friend, the only man
in the world who had ever been like a father to him. He knew that the
engineer was far away in the Mediterranean, working on an English
transport. He scanned the poster with amazement.

Apparently his friend had written a book. Tommy, like a practical
seaman, went to the heart of the matter. He went into the shop and
bought the book. He fell into talk with the bookseller, who had read the
book. He told the bookseller that he had known the author, and that for
years they had served together on the same vessels at sea. He told how
the writer, who was the former second engineer of the _Fernfield_, had
done many things for the little Dutch lad whose own father had died at
sea. Then came another surprise.

"I believe you're one of the characters in the story," said the
bookseller.

It was so. The book was "Casuals of the Sea," the author, William McFee,
who had been a steamship engineer for a dozen years; and Drevis Jonkers
found himself described in full in the novel as "Drevis Noordhof," and
playing a leading part in the story. Can you imagine the simple sailor's
surprise and delight? Pleased beyond measure, in his soft Dutch accent
liberally flavoured with cockney he told the bookseller how Mr. McFee
had befriended him, had urged him to go on studying navigation so that
he might become an officer; and that though they had not met for
several years he still receives letters from his friend, full of good