for another year; but as I left the office I found him coming up its
steps outside, and not as though there were the affairs of a month to be
got into two days, but in leisurely abstraction. He might have been
making up his mind that, after all, there was no need to call there, for
he was studying each step as if he were looking for the bottom of a
mystery. His fingers were twirling the little ivory pig he carries as a
charm on his watchguard. The pig is supposed to assist him when he is in
a difficulty. He raised his eyes.

"Anyhow," he despaired to me with irrelevance, "I can't do anything for
him."

I waited for the chance of a clue. "I thought," Macandrew quietly
soliloquized, "he knew better than that. He's been a failure, but all
the same, he's got a better head than most of us. She's sure to bring
him to grief."

"What's all this about?" I ventured.

"I've just been talking to Purdy. You remember what Hanson said of that
voyage he's making? Purdy is taking Jessie with him. You don't know
Purdy, but I do. And I know Jessie; but that's nothing."

"Taking her with him?" I asked; "but how. . . ."

"Oh, cook, of course. That'll be it. She'll be steward, naturally.
That's reasonable. You've seen her. Jessie's the sort of woman would
jump at the chance of such a pleasant trip, as cook."

"I don't understand. . . ."