"You shall have my room, a little place over the kitchen, with a
ceiling that follows the slant of the roof down one side, against
which you will bump your head times innumerable until you learn
to remember that it is there, and a looking glass which will make
one of your eyes as small as a pea and the other as big as an
orange.

"But to compensate for these disadvantages the supply of towels
is generous and unexceptionable; and there is a window whence you
will daily behold an occidental view over Lindsay Harbour and the
gulf beyond which is an unspeakable miracle of beauty. The sun
is setting over it as I write and I see such a sea of glass
mingled with fire as might have figured in the visions of the
Patmian seer. A vessel is sailing away into the gold and crimson
and pearl of the horizon; the big revolving light on the tip of
the headland beyond the harbour has just been lighted and is
winking and flashing like a beacon,

"'O'er the foam
Of perilous seas in faerie lands forlorn.'"

"Wire me if you can come; and if you can, report for duty on the
twenty-third of May."

Mr. Marshall, Senior, came in, just as Eric was thoughtfully
folding up his letter. The former looked more like a benevolent
old clergyman or philanthropist than the keen, shrewd, somewhat
hard, although just and honest, man of business that he really
was. He had a round, rosy face, fringed with white whiskers, a
fine head of long white hair, and a pursed-up mouth. Only in his