THE BLACKBIRD
If Paul Dane were alive now he would be called a "bounder"—probably with good strong double-barreled prefixes to it; but what the sharks left of him is floating about amongst the coral beds somewhere in the New Britain group of islands.
It was long ago.
There were two women: one of the two was Paul Dane's wife, the other wasn't.
Women are queer about men, especially about "bounders"; I dare say you have noticed that. I remember an awfully pretty woman once who had the pick of Melbourne to choose from, but she bolted with a cock-eyed Yankee "drummer," and went barmaiding eventually at Spiers and Ponds in Piccadilly. That was in the early seventies; then she died.
I could tell you of lots of other cases where the "bounders" got the best of it, but they have nothing to do with Paul Dane, so maybe I'll tell you some other time, or perhaps I won't.
There was nothing extraordinary in my first meeting with Dane. I was loafing around Darling harbor watching the ships loading wool for home. I had been roaming over the colonies for some years, and hoped I might pick up a billet round the wharves; but my luck was out and so was my money. I had not even the price of a screw of tobacco on me.
A little tops'l schooner at one of the wharves attracted me; she looked so smart, with taut spars and such a clean entrance and run I could not help standing watching her.
She was a vessel of about a hundred and fifty tons, with a lot of room between decks, where a couple of men were stowing away cases of "Yankee notions";
