one o’clock he went out to get a bit of dinner and didn’t turn up at two as he ought to have done. Instead there came a messenger from the hospital with a note signed by a doctor. Collar bone and one arm broken. Let himself be knocked down by a pair horse van while crossing the road outside the dock gate, as if he had neither eyes nor ears. And the ship ready to leave the dock at six o’clock to-morrow morning!

“Mr. Powell dipped his pen and began to turn the leaves of the agreement over. “We must then take his name off,” he says in a kind of unconcerned sing-song.

“What am I to do?” burst out the skipper. “This office closes at four o’clock. I can’t find a man in half an hour.”

“This office closes at four,” repeats Mr. Powell glancing up and down the pages and touching up a letter here and there with perfect indifference.

“Even if I managed to lay hold some time to-day of a man ready to go at such short notice I couldn’t ship him regularly here—could I?”

“Mr. Powell was busy drawing his pen through the entries relating to that unlucky second mate and making a note in the margin.

“You could sign him on yourself on board,” says he without looking up. “But I don’t think you’ll find easily an officer for such a pier-head jump.”

“Upon this the fine-looking skipper gave signs of distress. The ship mustn’t miss the next morning’s tide. He had to take on board forty tons of dynamite and a hundred and twenty tons of gunpowder at a place down the river before proceeding to sea. It was all arranged for next day. There would be no end of fuss and complications if the ship didn’t turn up in time . . . I couldn’t help hearing all this, while wishing him to take himself off, because I wanted to know why Mr. Powell had told me to wait. After what he had been saying there didn’t seem any object in my hanging about. If I had had my certificate in my pocket I should have tried to slip away quietly; but Mr. Powell had turned about into the same position I found him in at first and was again swinging his leg. My certificate open on the desk was under his left elbow and I couldn’t very well go up and jerk it away.

“I don’t know,” says he carelessly, addressing the helpless captain but looking fixedly at me with an expression as if I hadn’t been there. “I don’t know whether I ought to tell you that I know of a disengaged second mate at hand.”

“Do you 

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