at Montreal.

But why was I in the middle of Canada going west, when my grandparents
lived in England? Promptly I created a married sister who lived in
California. She would take care of me. I developed at length her
loving nature. But they were not done with me, those hard-hearted
policemen. I had joined the _Glenmore_ in England; in the two years
that had elapsed before my desertion at Montreal, what had the
_Glenmore_ done and where had she been? And thereat I took those
landlubbers around the world with me. Buffeted by pounding seas and
stung with flying spray, they fought a typhoon with me off the coast
of Japan. They loaded and unloaded cargo with me in all the ports of
the Seven Seas. I took them to India, and Rangoon, and China, and had
them hammer ice with me around the Horn and at last come to moorings
at Montreal.

And then they said to wait a moment, and one policeman went forth into
the night while I warmed myself at the stove, all the while racking my
brains for the trap they were going to spring on me.

I groaned to myself when I saw him come in the door at the heels of
the policeman. No gypsy prank had thrust those tiny hoops of gold
through the ears; no prairie winds had beaten that skin into wrinkled
leather; nor had snow-drift and mountain-slope put in his walk that
reminiscent roll. And in those eyes, when they looked at me, I saw the
unmistakable sun-wash of the sea. Here was a theme, alas! with half a
dozen policemen to watch me read--I who had never sailed the China
seas, nor been around the Horn, nor looked with my eyes upon India and
Rangoon.