Not many of those men about now. You can go the length of the Dock
Road today and see nothing and meet nobody."

He looked again into the flames, fixedly, as though what he really
wanted was only to be found in them. His wife was at his elbow. She,
too, was watching them, still with his coat over her arm. She spoke
aloud, though more to herself than to us. "She seemed such a nice
little woman, too. I couldn't see the badge on his cap."

"Eh?" said the old man, throwing the cat back to the floor and rounding
to his wife. "What's that? Let's have tea, Mrs. Williams. We're both
dreaming, and there's a visitor. What are you dreaming about? You've
nothing to dream about."

There was never any doubt, though, that the past was full and alive to
him. There was only the past. And what a memory was his! He would
look at the portrait of his old clipper, the _Oberon_--it was central
over the mantel-shelf--and recall her voyages, and the days in each
voyage, and just how the weather was, what canvas she carried, and how
things happened. Malabar Street vanished. We would go, when he was in
that mood, and live for the evening in another year, with men who have
gone, among strange affairs forgotten.

Mrs. Williams would be in her dream, too, with her work-basket in her
lap, absently picking the table-cloth with her needle. But for us, all
we knew was that the _Cinderella_ had a day's start of us, and the
weather in the Southern Ocean, when we got there, was like the death of
the world. I was aware that we were under foresail, lower topsails,
and stay-sails only, and they were too much. They were driving us
under, and the _Oberon_ was tender. Yes, she was very tricky. But