"Paul!" Rather a sweet-toned voice came up from the schooner's cabin.
"Coming—my dear."
"Breakfast!" cried the voice. I smelt it—not the voice but the bacon.
Captain Dane turned aft, and as he went down the companion looked my way and said:
"No larks now! You'll come—sure?"
"Sure, sir," said I.
"So long!" and he disappeared.
I climbed the ladder, took a hurried survey of the schooner, and walked away to break my five bob with a good square meal and a pint of beer. By Jove I wanted them—badly.
I was in high spirits.
Having been third mate of a big ship, I never dreamt of having to go before the mast. But that didn't bother me so much, and my thoughts ran helter-skelter till I got dreaming of blue seas and skies—bright coral reefs—fairy-like islands clad with tropical trees—dusky men and women familiar to me in pictures, and a thousand wonders, that, to my imagination, seemed the most desirable things to have seen and known on earth. Isn't youth gorgeous!
A youngster just going to sea from the old "Conway" writes to me now and then; he is crazy about the sea as I was at his age (as I am now!), all eager anticipation to see the sights I have seen, to go where I have been. I shall have a "real good time," as our Yankee cousins say, when that boy comes home from his first voyage and we get together and yarn about it all.
Looking back on life—all the follies of it—all the tragedies—the ups and downs—and the ins and outs—the pleasures and pains—I wonder if I had to live over again whether I would change any of it! We all say we would!
"If I could only start at twenty with the experi-
