Chance

"Meantime we followed my sea-chest which was being carried down a sort of

deep narrow lane, separating two high warehouses, between honest Ted and

his little devil of a pal who had to keep up a trot to the other's

stride. The skirt of his soldier's coat floating behind him nearly swept

the ground so that he seemed to be running on castors. At the corner of

the gloomy passage a rigged jib boom with a dolphin-striker ending in an

arrow-head stuck out of the night close to a cast iron lamp-post. It was

the quay side. They set down their load in the light and honest Ted

asked hoarsely: "Where's your ship, guv'nor?"

"I didn't know. The constable was interested at my ignorance.

"Don't know where your ship is?" he asked with curiosity. "And you the

second officer! Haven't you been working on board of her?"

"I couldn't explain that the only work connected with my appointment was

the work of chance. I told him briefly that I didn't know her at all. At

this he remarked: "So I see. Here she is, right before you. That's her."

"At once the head-gear in the gas light inspired me with interest and

respect; the spars were big, the chains and ropes stout and the whole

thing looked powerful and trustworthy. Barely touched by the light her

bows rose faintly alongside the narrow strip of the quay; the rest of her

was a black smudge in the darkness. Here I was face to face with my

start in life. We walked in a body a few steps on a greasy pavement

between her side and the towering wall of a warehouse and I hit my shins

cruelly against the end of the gangway. The constable hailed her quietly

in a bass undertone 'Ferndale there!' A feeble and dismal sound,

something in the nature of a buzzing groan, answered from behind the

bulwarks.

"I distinguished vaguely an irregular round knob, of wood, perhaps,

resting on the rail. It did not move in the least; but as another broken-

down buzz like a still fainter echo of the first dismal sound proceeded

from it I concluded it must be the head of the ship-keeper. The stalwart

constable jeered in a mock-official manner.

"Second officer coming to join. Move yourself a bit."

"The truth of the statement touched me in the pit of the stomach (you

know that's the spot where emotion gets home on a man) for it was borne

upon me that really and truly I was nothing but a second officer of a

ship just like any other second officer, to that constable. I was moved

by this solid evidence of my new dignity. Only his tone offended me.

Nevertheless I gave him the tip he was looking for. Thereupon he lost

all interest in me, humorous or otherwise, and walked away driving

sternly before him the honest Ted, who went off grumbling to himself like

a hungry ogre, and his horrible dumb little pal in the soldier's coat,

who, from first to last, never emitted the slightest sound.