Chance

"Don't you know it's illegal?"

"I wondered what he was driving at till I remembered that procuring a

berth for a sailor is a penal offence under the Act. That clause was

directed of course against the swindling practices of the boarding-house

crimps. It had never struck me it would apply to everybody alike no

matter what the motive, because I believed then that people on shore did

their work with care and foresight.

"I was confounded at the idea, but Mr. Powell made me soon see that an

Act of Parliament hasn't any sense of its own. It has only the sense

that's put into it; and that's precious little sometimes. He didn't mind

helping a young man to a ship now and then, he said, but if we kept on

coming constantly it would soon get about that he was doing it for money.

"A pretty thing that would be: the Senior Shipping-Master of the Port of

London hauled up in a police court and fined fifty pounds," says he.

"I've another four years to serve to get my pension. It could be made to

look very black against me and don't you make any mistake about it," he

says.

"And all the time with one knee well up he went on swinging his other leg

like a boy on a gate and looking at me very straight with his shining

eyes. I was confounded I tell you. It made me sick to hear him imply

that somebody would make a report against him.

"Oh!" I asked shocked, "who would think of such a scurvy trick, sir?" I

was half disgusted with him for having the mere notion of it.

"Who?" says he, speaking very low. "Anybody. One of the office

messengers maybe. I've risen to be the Senior of this office and we are

all very good friends here, but don't you think that my colleague that

sits next to me wouldn't like to go up to this desk by the window four

years in advance of the regulation time? Or even one year for that

matter. It's human nature."

"I could not help turning my head. The three fellows who had been

skylarking when I came in were now talking together very soberly, and the

long-necked chap was going on with his writing still. He seemed to me

the most dangerous of the lot. I saw him sideface and his lips were set

very tight. I had never looked at mankind in that light before. When

one's young human nature shocks one. But what startled me most was to

see the door I had come through open slowly and give passage to a head in

a uniform cap with a Board of Trade badge. It was that blamed old

doorkeeper from the hall. He had run me to earth and meant to dig me out

too. He walked up the office smirking craftily, cap in hand.