to his sacred hospitality, and, between mouthfuls, started a song, quaint and very old, the sort that can come only from the sea. For tattered and torn and weather-beaten this wanderer might be, but never, even at the lowest ebb of his fortunes, anything but cheerful, highly diverting, and picturesque. These fortunes were about at their neap tide now. Three days before he had been paid oft in Philadelphia where his ship had docked; had been robbed of that total ten minutes later; then, seized by some inexplicable wanderlust, had crossed the ferry to Camden and footed it through the sands and pines of south Jersey, only to land again on the shore, with the fourth sun-up.
The song over, he doffed his stiff brogans; rolled up to his knees a pair of trousers which had been stained by many waters to a characterless green; and plunged his feet in the sands. That he had two garments was obvious—the possession of more was extremely doubtful. This second, a denim shirt, matched the nether one in nondescript hue, opening to reveal a neck as brown and hairy as his shanks, and adorned in tattoo with some one of his patron saints. This design was intricate and must have cost much time and pains, to say nothing of physical agony, but it was not nearly so elaborate as the decorations on the arms which were veritable totem poles with their wealth of anchors, birds of paradise, hearts, suns, moons, and stars, etched in vari-coloured inks.
A curling brown beard, circular brass earrings, and a red and yellow handkerchief, bound fillet-wise about his forehead, completed the picture, all framing the seamed and leathery scroll of a face wherein one could read, not the
