rocks, and, far beyond, the masts of shipping and the precipitous water-front of San Francisco.
Beauling's heart was singing a delightful song with this burden:
Four and a half days to New York.
When suddenly it was bruited about that there was plague in Yokohama, and the ship, with all souls, would have to remain for ten days in quarantine. After the first indignant outburst, people did not speak to each other at all, but became sullen and brooding, Beauling among them.
A worse misfortune befell. The awfulness of delays increases in direct ratio as the distance decreases. If you were in Singapore and the Only One was in New York, you could force yourself to wait over a steamer. You would suffer, but you could do it. Arriving at San Francisco, a delay of ten days would be torture infernal. You would grow thin, your temper would spoil—you could just
