at a fire of sticks in the company of other good fellows; then, gorged
and happy, sat him back among the gnawed bones to tell his artless tales
of experience--the tales of hunger and hunt--and of women, perhaps!

But luckily the wine happened to be as old as the waiter. So,
comparatively empty, but upon the whole fairly happy, we sat back and
told our artless tales. We talked of the sea and all its works. The
sea never changes, and its works for all the talk of men are wrapped in
mystery. But we agreed that the times were changed. And we talked of old
ships, of sea-accidents, of break-downs, dismastings; and of a man who
brought his ship safe to Liverpool all the way from the River Platte
under a jury rudder. We talked of wrecks, of short rations and of
heroism--or at least of what the newspapers would have called heroism
at sea--a manifestation of virtues quite different from the heroism of
primitive times. And now and then falling silent all together we gazed
at the sights of the river.

A P. & O. boat passed bound down. "One gets jolly good dinners on board
these ships," remarked one of our band. A man with sharp eyes read
out the name on her bows: Arcadia. "What a beautiful model of a ship!"
murmured some of us. She was followed by a small cargo steamer, and the
flag they hauled down aboard while we were looking showed her to be a
Norwegian. She made an awful lot of smoke; and before it had quite blown
away, a high-sided, short, wooden barque, in ballast and towed by a
paddle-tug, appeared in front of the windows. All her hands were forward
busy setting up the headgear; and aft a woman in a red hood, quite alone
with the man at the wheel, paced the length of the poop back and forth,
with the grey wool of some knitting work in her hands.

"German I should think," muttered one. "The skipper has his wife on