science needed just his abilities and training. But when Aleck arrived
in Lynn he found that Jim, in some fashion or other, had found a cure for
himself. He was deeper than ever in the business, and yet, in some
spiritual sense, he had found himself. He had captured his ideal again
and yoked it to duty--which is a great feat.

After twelve years of ferocious labor, with no vacations to speak of,
James's mind took a turn for the worse. Physically he was as sound as a
bell, though of a lath-like thinness; but an effervescing in his blood
lured his mind away from the study of lasts and accounts and Parisian
models and sent it careering, like Satan, up and down the earth.
Romance, which had been drugged during the transition from youth to
manhood, awoke and coaxed for its rights, and whispered temptingly in an
ear not yet dulled to its voice. Freedom, open spaces, laughter, the
fresh sweep of the wind, the high bucaneering piracy of life and
joy--these things beglamoured his senses.

So one day he locked his desk with a final click. The business was in
good shape. It is but justice to say that if it had not been, Romance
had dangled her luring wisp o' light in vain. Several of his new schemes
had worked out well, his subordinates were of one mind with him, trade
was flourishing. He felt he could afford a little spin.

Jimsy's radiating fancies focussed themselves, at last, on the vision of
a trig little sail-boat, "a jug of wine, a loaf of bread" in the cabin,
with possibly the book of verses underneath the bow, or more suitably, in
the shadow of the sail; and Aleck Van Camp and himself astir in the
rigging or plunging together from the gunwale for an early swim. "And
before I get off, I'll hear a singer that can sing," he declared.