her foc’sle engaged in preparing fish for a curry.

“That’s the canal,” said Hank. “She’s come through from ’Urope with a cargo and now she’s loading up for Bombay or somewhere. Looks as if she’d been built by some one that’d gone bughouse, don’t she? She’s built like that to save dues going through the Suez Canal. Wonder what the shipping companies will be up to in the way of swindling the Panama. I tell you, Bud, there’s not a hair’s difference between humans and rats for tricks and smart ways.”

They passed along, reaching an old decayed bit of wharf that had somehow withstood change and reconstruction. It is now little more than a landing stage, but in the old days, under the name of Rafferty’s wharf, it had a broad front. Whalers used to come alongside to discharge and clean up and here Bones’ Old Sailors’ Lodging House, half tavern, used to take unfortunates in and do for them. There was a trap door from Bones’ back parlour to the water below, where boats could come in between the piles and ship off sailor men blind with dope. Then it became respectable and changed its name to Sullivan’s.

Alongside this stage lay the Wear Jack, a sixty ton schooner, fifty feet long. The watchman31 happened to be on deck, a thin man greatly gone to decay, dressed in a brown sweater and wearing an old fur cap. He was seated on the coaming of the skylight, smoking.

31

“Hullo,” said Hank. “That you, Jake?”

The fellow below cocked an eye up and evidently recognised the other, but he didn’t move.

“I’m coming aboard to overhaul her,” said Hank. “I’ve just seen Mr. Tyrebuck, here’s his card.”

“Well, I’m not preventin’ you,” said Jake.

Hank came down the ladder followed by George.

The deck of the Wear Jack ran flush fore and aft. Neglect sat there with dirt and tobacco juice. Old ends of rope lay about and spars and main blocks that had seen a better day, and bits of newspaper and a bucket with potato peelings in it.

Forward, with her keel to the sky, lay an old broken dinghy that might have come out of the ark, and a flannel jumper aired itself on the port rail. No wonder that prospective buyers sniffed and went off.

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