How I Got On the Stage
Good Lord, how it rained! It wasn't a shower or a squall; it came down in bucketsful; the whole reservoir of Heaven seemed to have burst and emptied the accumulated water of centuries upon our devoted decks. I was one of the mates of a big passenger liner, a large three-masted, ship-rigged vessel with double top-gallant yards, not then so much in use as they are today. She was the "Thomas Stevens," one of the quickest and smartest ships afloat with passengers from Melbourne to London. We were swinging into position to enter the Milwall docks. My foot touched land for the first time for ninety days when I leaped from the rail onto the dolphin at the Dock gates, slipped the end of our guess-warp over the bollard, and sang out to them inboard to take in the slack.
"Hullo!" came a hail from the pier-head, muffled by the mist and noise of the falling rain.
I looked around. On the pier I could see indistinctly a few miserably wet-looking men and one or two dockhands comfortably enveloped in oilskins, off which the water poured in torrents.
"Hullo!" came the hail again. "Hullo, is that you, Harold?"
Harold was my name right enough, but I didn't know who on earth could be hailing me. I had been out in Australia for nearly five years. My dear father was dead. My sisters were married; one was in India, the other with her husband's regiment God knows where, and my elder brother had been in Canada for many years, and for all I knew was still there. I hadn't a friend in the world I could expect to greet me. Though I heard my name, I thought there must be some man among the passengers with the same name, so I took no notice. When the ship swung alongside the dolphin
