preparing nice little messes. I looked languidly after the rigging. We
became citizens of Falmouth. Every shopkeeper knew us. At the barber's
or tobacconist's they asked familiarly, 'Do you think you will ever get
to Bankok?' Meantime the owner, the underwriters, and the charterers
squabbled amongst themselves in London, and our pay went on.. . . Pass
the bottle.

"It was horrid. Morally it was worse than pumping for life. It seemed as
though we had been forgotten by the world, belonged to nobody, would get
nowhere; it seemed that, as if bewitched, we would have to live for ever
and ever in that inner harbour, a derision and a by-word to generations
of long-shore loafers and dishonest boatmen. I obtained three months'
pay and a five days' leave, and made a rush for London. It took me a day
to get there and pretty well another to come back--but three months'
pay went all the same. I don't know what I did with it. I went to a
music-hall, I believe, lunched, dined, and supped in a swell place in
Regent Street, and was back to time, with nothing but a complete set of
Byron's works and a new railway rug to show for three months' work. The
boatman who pulled me off to the ship said: 'Hallo! I thought you had
left the old thing. _She_ will never get to Bankok.' 'That's all _you_
know about it,' I said scornfully--but I didn't like that prophecy at
all.

"Suddenly a man, some kind of agent to somebody, appeared with full
powers. He had grog-blossoms all over his face, an indomitable energy,
and was a jolly soul. We leaped into life again. A hulk came alongside,
took our cargo, and then we went into dry dock to get our copper
stripped. No wonder she leaked. The poor thing, strained beyond
endurance by the gale, had, as if in disgust, spat out all the oakum of
her lower seams. She was recalked, new coppered, and made as tight as a