albatrosses hovered motionless, expectant of a comrade, and a
thousand islands held each of them a fresh adventure, stored up,
hidden away, awaiting production, expressly saved for me. We
were humming, close-hauled, down the Channel, spray in the eyes
and the shrouds thrilling musically, in much less time than the
average man would have taken to transfer his Gladstone bag and
his rugs from the train to a sheltered place on the promenade-
deck of the tame daily steamer.

So long as we were in pilotage I stuck manfully to the wheel.
The undertaking was mine, and with it all its responsibilities,
and there was some tricky steering to be done as we sped by
headland and bay, ere we breasted the great seas outside and
the land fell away behind us. But as soon as the Atlantic
had opened out I began to feel that it would be rather nice to
take tea by myself in my own cabin, and it therefore became
necessary to invent a comrade or two, to take their turn at the
wheel.

This was easy enough. A friend or two of my own age, from among
the boys I knew; a friend or two from characters in the books I
knew; and a friend or two from No-man's-land, where every
fellow's a born sailor; and the crew was complete. I addressed
them on the poop, divided them into watches, gave instructions I
should be summoned on the first sign of pirates, whales, or
Frenchmen, and retired below to a well-earned spell of
relaxation.

That was the right sort of cabin that I stepped into, shutting
the door behind me with a click. Of course, fire-arms were the