An English mist was rolling lazily inland from the sea. It half
enveloped the two great ocean liners that lay tugging at their
moorings in the bay, and settled over the wharf with a grim
determination to check, as far as possible, the traffic of the
morning.

But the activity of the wharf, while impeded, was in no wise stopped.
The bustle, rattle, and shouting were, in fact, augmented by the
temporary interference. Everybody seemed in a hurry, and everybody
seemed out of temper, save a boy who lay at full length on the quay
and earnestly studied a weather-vane that was lazily trying to make
up its mind which way to point.

He was ragged and brawny and picturesque. His hands, bronzed by the
tan of sixteen summers, were clasped under his head, and his legs were
crossed, one soleless shoe on high vaunting its nakedness in the face
of an indifferent world. A sailor's blouse, two sizes too large, was
held together at the neck by a bit of red cambric, and his trousers
were anchored to their mooring by a heavy piece of yellow twine. The
indolence of his position, however, was not indicative of the state of
his mind; for under his weather-beaten old cap, perched sidewise on a
tousled head, was a commotion of dreams and schemes, ambitions and
plans, whose activities would have put to shame the busiest wharf in
the world.

"It's your show, Sandy Kilday!" he said, half aloud, with a bit of a
brogue that flavored his speech as the salt flavors the sea air. "You
don't want to be a bloomin' old weather-vane, a-changin' your mind
every time the wind blows. Is it go, or stay?"