galleries; get to know something about this great America if you intend
to settle down there--that is the kind of word Tommy gets from his
friend.

Gradually, as I talked with him, I began to see into the laboratory of
life where "Casuals of the Sea" originated. This book is valuable
because it is a triumphant expression of the haphazard, strangely woven
chances that govern the lives of the humble. In Tommy's honest, gentle
face, and in the talk of his shipmates when we sat down to dinner
together, I saw a microcosm of the strange barren life of the sea where
men float about for years like driftwood. And out of all this ebbing
tide of aimless, happy-go-lucky humanity McFee had chanced upon this boy
from Amsterdam and had tried to pound into him some good sound common
sense.

When I left her that afternoon, the _Alvina_ was getting up steam, and
she sailed within a few hours. I had eaten and talked with her crew, and
for a short space had a glimpse of the lives and thoughts of the simple,
childlike men who live on ships. I realized for the first time the truth
of that background of aimless hazard that makes "Casuals of the Sea" a
book of more than passing merit.

As for Tommy, the printed word had him in thrall though he knew it not.
When he got back from Liverpool, two months later, I found him a job in
the engine room of a big printing press. He was set to work oiling the
dynamos, and at ten dollars a week he had a fine chance to work his way
up. Indeed, he enrolled in a Scranton correspondence course on steam
engineering and enchanted his Hempstead landlady by his simple ways.
That lasted just two weeks. The level ground made Tommy's feet uneasy.
The last I heard he was on a steam yacht on Long Island Sound.