occur to him, any more than it would have occurred to a stone image, to put up his hand to the watch in his breast pocket.

[Pg 33]

Daylight came, then sunlight streaming into his room, and cheery sounds of voices without, but he did not stir. Not until the thrill of contact with the land went through the steamer did he spring to his feet, like a man restored to consciousness by galvanic action. He was the first passenger to reach the wharf, and the steward, who watched him going, remarked sarcastically that he was glad to see "that 'ere dead man come to life."

Vesper was himself again when his feet touched the shore. He looked about him, saw the bright little town of Yarmouth, black rocks, a blue harbor, and a glorious sky. His contemplation of the landscape over, he reflected that he was faint from hunger. He turned his back on the steamer, where his fellow passengers had recently breakfasted at fine tables spread under a ceiling of milky white and gold, and hurried to a modest eating-house near by from which a savory smell of broiled steak and fried potatoes floated out on the morning air.

He entered it, and after a hasty wash and brush-up ate his breakfast with frantic appetite. He now[Pg 34] felt that he had received a new lease of life, and buttoning his collar up around his neck, for the temperature was some degrees lower than that of his native city, he hurried back to the wharf, where the passengers and the customs men were quarrelling as if they had been enemies for life.

[Pg 34]

With ingratiating and politic calmness he pointed out his trunk and bicycle, assured the suspicious official that although he was an American he was honest and had nothing to sell and nothing dutiable in the former, and that he had not the slightest objection to paying the thirty per cent deposit required on the latter; then, a prey to inward laughter at the enlivening spectacle of open trunks and red faces, he proceeded to the railway station, looking about him for other signs that he was in a foreign country.

Nova Scotia was very like Maine so far. Here were the Maine houses, the Maine trees and rocks, even the Maine wild flowers by the side of the road. He thoughtfully boarded the train, scrutinized the comfortable parlor-car, and, after the lapse of half an hour, decided that he was not in Maine, for, if he had been, the train would certainly have started.

As he was making this reflection, a dapper 

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