{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1669/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1669","id":"gutenberg_1669","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1669","summary":null,"tags":["American drama -- 20th century","American essays -- 20th century","Category: Archaeology & Anthropology","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Other","Category: Philosophy & Ethics"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1919 Mills and Boon edition by David Price, email\nccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE HUMAN DRIFT\nby Jack London\n\n\nContents:\n\nThe Human Drift\nSmall-Boat Sailing\nFour Horses and a Sailor\nNothing that Ever Came to Anything\nThat Dead Men Rise up Never\nA Classic of the Sea\n    A Wicked Woman (Curtain Raiser)\n    The Birth Mark (Sketch)\n\n\n\n\nTHE HUMAN DRIFT\n\n\n   \"The Revelations of Devout and Learn'd\n   Who rose before us, and as Prophets Burn'd,\n      Are all but stories, which, awoke from Sleep,\n   They told their comrades, and to Sleep return'd.\"\n\nThe history of civilisation is a history of wandering, sword in hand, in\nsearch of food.  In the misty younger world we catch glimpses of phantom\nraces, rising, slaying, finding food, building rude civilisations,\ndecaying, falling under the swords of stronger hands, and passing utterly\naway.  Man, like any other animal, has roved over the earth seeking what\nhe might devour; and not romance and adventure, but the hunger-need, has\nurged him on his vast adventures.  Whether a bankrupt gentleman sailing\nto colonise Virginia or a lean Cantonese contracting to labour on the\nsugar plantations of Hawaii, in each case, gentleman and coolie, it is a\ndesperate attempt to get something to eat, to get more to eat than he can\nget at home.\n\nIt has always been so, from the time of the first pre-human anthropoid\ncrossing a mountain-divide in quest of better berry-bushes beyond, down\nto the latest Slovak, arriving on our shores to-day, to go to work in the\ncoal-mines of Pennsylvania.  These migratory movements of peoples have\nbeen called drifts, and the word is apposite.  Unplanned, blind,\nautomatic, spurred on by the pain of hunger, man has literally drifted\nhis way around the planet.  There have been drifts in the past,\ninnumerable and forgotten, and so remote that no records have been left,\nor composed of such low-typed humans or pre-humans that they made no\nscratchings on stone or bone and left no monuments to show that they had\nbeen.\n\nThese early drifts we conjecture and know must have occurred, just as we\nknow that the first upright-walking brutes were descended from some kin\nof the quadrumana through having developed \"a pair of great toes out of\ntwo opposable thumbs.\"  Dominated by fear, and by their very fear\naccelerating their development, these early ancestors of ours, suffering\nhunger-pangs very like the ones we experience to-day, drifted on, hunting\nand being hunted, eating and being eaten, wandering through thousand-year-\nlong odysseys of screaming primordial savagery, until they left their\nskeletons in glacial gravels, some of them, and their bone-scratchings in\ncave-men's lairs.\n\nThere have been drifts from east to west and west to east, from north to\nsouth and back again, drifts that have criss-crossed one another, and\ndrifts colliding and recoiling and caroming off in new directions.  From\nCentral Europe the Aryans have drifted into Asia, and from Central Asia\nthe Turanians have drifted across Europe.  Asia has thrown forth great\nwaves of hungry humans from the prehistoric \"round-barrow\" \"broad-heads\"\nwho overran Europe and penetrated to Scandinavia and England, down\nthrough the hordes of Attila and Tamerlane, to the present immigration of\nChinese and Japanese that threatens America.  The Phoenicians and the\nGreeks, with unremembered drifts behind them, colonised the\nMediterranean.  Rome was engulfed in the torrent of Germanic tribes\ndrifting down from the north before a flood of drifting Asiatics.  The\nAngles, Saxons, and Jutes, after having drifted whence no man knows,\npoured into Britain, and the English have carried this drift on around\nthe world.  Retreating before stronger breeds, hungry and voracious, the\nEskimo has drifted to the inhospitable polar regions, the Pigmy to the\nfever-rotten jungles of Africa.  And in this day the drift of the races\ncontinues, whether it be of Chinese into the Philippines and the Malay\nPeninsula, of Europeans to the United States or of Americans to the wheat-\nlands of Manitoba and the Northwest.\n\nPerhaps most amazing has been the South Sea Drift.  Blind, fortuitous,\nprecarious as no other drift has been, nevertheless the islands in that\nwaste of ocean have received drift after drift of the races.  Down from\nthe mainland of Asia poured an Aryan drift that built civilisations in\nCeylon, Java, and Sumatra.  Only the monuments of these Aryans remain.\nThey themselves have perished utterly, though not until after leaving\nevidences of their drift clear across the great South Pacific to far\nEaster Island.  And on that drift they encountered races who had\naccomplished the drift before them, and they, the Aryans, passed, in\nturn, before the drift of other and subsequent races whom we to-day call\nthe Polynesian and the Melanesian.\n\nMan early discovered death.  As soon as his evolution permitted, he made\nhimself better devices for killing than the old natural ones of fang and\nclaw.  He devoted himself to the invention of killing devices before he\ndiscovered fire or manufactured for himself religion.  And to this day,\nhis finest creative energy and technical skill are devoted to the same\nold task of making better and ever better killing weapons.  All his days,\ndown all the past, have been spent in killing.  And from the\nfear-stricken, jungle-lurking, cave-haunting creature of long ago, he won\nto empery over the whole animal world because he developed into the most\nterrible and awful killer of all the animals.  He found himself crowded.\nHe killed to make room, and as he made room ever he increased and found\nhimself crowded, and ever he went on killing to make more room.  Like a\nsettler clearing land of its weeds and forest bushes in order to plant\ncorn, so man was compelled to clear all manner of life away in order to\nplant himself.  And, sword in hand, he has literally hewn his way through\nthe vast masses of life that occupied the earth space he coveted for\nhimself.  And ever he has carried the battle wider and wider, until to-\nday not only is he a far more capable killer of men and animals than ever\nbefore, but he has pressed the battle home to the infinite and invisible\nhosts of menacing lives in the world of micro-organisms.\n\nIt is true, that they that rose by the sword perished by the sword.  And\nyet, not only did they not all perish, but more rose by the sword than\nperished by it, else man would not to-day be over-running the world in\nsuch huge swarms.  Also, it must not be forgotten that they who did not\nrise by the sword did not rise at all.  They were not.  In view of this,\nthere is something wrong with Doctor Jordan's war-theory, which is to the\neffect that the best being sent out to war, only the second best, the men\nwho are left, remain to breed a second-best race, and that, therefore,\nthe human race deteriorates under war.  If this be so, if we have sent\nforth the best we bred and gone on breeding from the men who were left,\nand since we have done this for ten thousand millenniums and are what we\nsplendidly are to-day, then what unthinkably splendid and god-like beings\nmust have been our forebears those ten thousand millenniums ago!\nUnfortunately for Doctor Jordan's theory, those ancient forebears cannot\nlive up to this fine reputation.  We know them for what they were, and\nbefore the monkey cage of any menagerie we catch truer glimpses and hints\nand resemblances of what our ancestors really were long and long ago.  And\nby killing, incessant killing, by making a shambles of the planet, those\nape-like creatures have developed even into you and me.  As Henley has\nsaid in \"The Song of the Sword\":\n\n   \"_The Sword Singing_--\n\n   Driving the darkness,\n   Even as the banners\n   And spear of the Morning;\n   Sifting the nations,\n   The Slag from the metal,\n   The waste and the weak\n   From the fit and the strong;\n   Fighting the brute,\n   The abysmal Fecundity;\n   Checking the gross\n   Multitudinous blunders,\n   The groping, the purblind\n   Excesses in service\n   Of the Womb universal,\n   The absolute drudge.\"\n\nAs time passed and man increased, he drifted ever farther afield in\nsearch of room.  He encountered other drifts of men, and the killing of\nmen became prodigious.  The weak and the decadent fell under the sword.\nNations that faltered, that waxed prosperous in fat valleys and rich\nriver deltas, were swept away by the drifts of stronger men who were\nnourished on the hardships of deserts and mountains and who were more\ncapable with the sword.  Unknown and unnumbered billions of men have been\nso destroyed in prehistoric times.  Draper says that in the twenty years\nof the Gothic war, Italy lost 15,000,000 of her population; \"and that the\nwars, famines, and pestilences of the reign of Justinian diminished the\nhuman species by the almost incredible number of 100,000,000.\"  Germany,\nin the Thirty Years' War, lost 6,000,000 inhabitants.  The record of our\nown American Civil War need scarcely be recalled.\n\nAnd man has been destroyed in other ways than by the sword.  Flood,\nfamine, pestilence and murder are potent factors in reducing\npopulation--in making room.  As Mr. Charles Woodruff, in his \"Expansion\nof Races,\" has instanced: In 1886, when the dikes of the Yellow River\nburst, 7,000,000 people were drowned.  The failure of crops in Ireland,\nin 1848, caused 1,000,000 deaths.  The famines in India of 1896-7 and\n1899-1900 lessened the population by 21,000,000.  The T'ai'ping rebellion\nand the Mohammedan rebellion, combined with the famine of 1877-78,\ndestroyed scores of millions of Chinese.  Europe has been swept\nrepeatedly by great plagues.  In India, for the period of 1903 to 1907,\nthe plague deaths averaged between one and two millions a year.  Mr.\nWoodruff is responsible for the assertion that 10,000,000 persons now\nliving in the United States are doomed to die of tuberculosis.  And in\nthis same country ten thousand persons a year are directly murdered.  In\nChina, between three and six millions of infants are annually destroyed,\nwhile the total infanticide record of the whole world is appalling.  In\nAfrica, now, human beings are dying by millions of the sleeping sickness.\n\nMore destructive of life than war, is industry.  In all civilised\ncountries great masses of people are crowded into slums and\nlabour-ghettos, where disease festers, vice corrodes, and famine is\nchronic, and where they die more swiftly and in greater numbers than do\nthe soldiers in our modern wars.  The very infant mortality of a slum\nparish in the East End of London is three times that of a middle-class\nparish in the West End.  In the United States, in the last fourteen\nyears, a total of coal-miners, greater than our entire standing army, has\nbeen killed and injured.  The United States Bureau of Labour states that\nduring the year 1908, there were between 30,000 and 35,000 deaths of\nworkers by accidents, while 200,000 more were injured.  In fact, the\nsafest place for a working-man is in the army.  And even if that army be\nat the front, fighting in Cuba or South Africa, the soldier in the ranks\nhas a better chance for life than the working-man at home.\n\nAnd yet, despite this terrible roll of death, despite the enormous\nkilling of the past and the enormous killing of the present, there are to-\nday alive on the planet a billion and three quarters of human beings.  Our\nimmediate conclusion is that man is exceedingly fecund and very tough.\nNever before have there been so many people in the world.  In the past\ncenturies the world's population has been smaller; in the future\ncenturies it is destined to be larger.  And this brings us to that old\nbugbear that has been so frequently laughed away and that still persists\nin raising its grisly head--namely, the doctrine of Malthus.  While man's\nincreasing efficiency of food-production, combined with colonisation of\nwhole virgin continents, has for generations given the apparent lie to\nMalthus' mathematical statement of the Law of Population, nevertheless\nthe essential significance of his doctrine remains and cannot be\nchallenged.  Population _does_ press against subsistence.  And no matter\nhow rapidly subsistence increases, population is certain to catch up with\nit.\n\nWhen man was in the hunting stage of development, wide areas were\nnecessary for the maintenance of scant populations.  With the shepherd\nstages, the means of subsistence being increased, a larger population was\nsupported on the same territory.  The agricultural stage gave support to\na still larger population; and, to-day, with the increased food-getting\nefficiency of a machine civilisation, an even larger population is made\npossible.  Nor is this theoretical.  The population is here, a billion\nand three quarters of men, women, and children, and this vast population\nis increasing on itself by leaps and bounds.\n\nA heavy European drift to the New World has gone on and is going on; yet\nEurope, whose population a century ago was 170,000,000, has to-day\n500,000,000.  At this rate of increase, provided that subsistence is not\novertaken, a century from now the population of Europe will be\n1,500,000,000.  And be it noted of the present rate of increase in the\nUnited States that only one-third is due to immigration, while two-thirds\nis due to excess of births over deaths.  And at this present rate of\nincrease, the population of the United States will be 500,000,000 in less\nthan a century from now.\n\nMan, the hungry one, the killer, has always suffered for lack of room.\nThe world has been chronically overcrowded.  Belgium with her 572 persons\nto the square mile is no more crowded than was Denmark when it supported\nonly 500 palaeolithic people.  According to Mr. Woodruff, cultivated land\nwill produce 1600 times as much food as hunting land.  From the time of\nthe Norman Conquest, for centuries Europe could support no more than 25\nto the square mile.  To-day Europe supports 81 to the square mile.  The\nexplanation of this is that for the several centuries after the Norman\nConquest her population was saturated.  Then, with the development of\ntrading and capitalism, of exploration and exploitation of new lands, and\nwith the invention of labour-saving machinery and the discovery and\napplication of scientific principles, was brought about a tremendous\nincrease in Europe's food-getting efficiency.  And immediately her\npopulation sprang up.\n\nAccording to the census of Ireland, of 1659, that country had a\npopulation of 500,000.  One hundred and fifty years later, her population\nwas 8,000,000.  For many centuries the population of Japan was\nstationary.  There seemed no way of increasing her food-getting\nefficiency.  Then, sixty years ago, came Commodore Perry, knocking down\nher doors and letting in the knowledge and machinery of the superior food-\ngetting efficiency of the Western world.  Immediately upon this rise in\nsubsistence began the rise of population; and it is only the other day\nthat Japan, finding her population once again pressing against\nsubsistence, embarked, sword in hand, on a westward drift in search of\nmore room.  And, sword in hand, killing and being killed, she has carved\nout for herself Formosa and Korea, and driven the vanguard of her drift\nfar into the rich interior of Manchuria.\n\nFor an immense period of time China's population has remained at\n400,000,000--the saturation point.  The only reason that the Yellow River\nperiodically drowns millions of Chinese is that there is no other land\nfor those millions to farm.  And after every such catastrophe the wave of\nhuman life rolls up and now millions flood out upon that precarious\nterritory.  They are driven to it, because they are pressed remorselessly\nagainst subsistence.  It is inevitable that China, sooner or later, like\nJapan, will learn and put into application our own superior food-getting\nefficiency.  And when that time comes, it is likewise inevitable that her\npopulation will increase by unguessed millions until it again reaches the\nsaturation point.  And then, inoculated with Western ideas, may she not,\nlike Japan, take sword in hand and start forth colossally on a drift of\nher own for more room?  This is another reputed bogie--the Yellow Peril;\nyet the men of China are only men, like any other race of men, and all\nmen, down all history, have drifted hungrily, here, there and everywhere\nover the planet, seeking for something to eat.  What other men do, may\nnot the Chinese do?\n\nBut a change has long been coming in the affairs of man.  The more recent\ndrifts of the stronger races, carving their way through the lesser breeds\nto more earth-space, has led to peace, ever to wider and more lasting\npeace.  The lesser breeds, under penalty of being killed, have been\ncompelled to lay down their weapons and cease killing among themselves.\nThe scalp-talking Indian and the head-hunting Melanesian have been either\ndestroyed or converted to a belief in the superior efficacy of civil\nsuits and criminal prosecutions.  The planet is being subdued.  The wild\nand the hurtful are either tamed or eliminated.  From the beasts of prey\nand the cannibal humans down to the death-dealing microbes, no quarter is\ngiven; and daily, wider and wider areas of hostile territory, whether of\na warring desert-tribe in Africa or a pestilential fever-hole like\nPanama, are made peaceable and habitable for mankind.  As for the great\nmass of stay-at-home folk, what percentage of the present generation in\nthe United States, England, or Germany, has seen war or knows anything of\nwar at first hand?  There was never so much peace in the world as there\nis to-day.\n\nWar itself, the old red anarch, is passing.  It is safer to be a soldier\nthan a working-man.  The chance for life is greater in an active campaign\nthan in a factory or a coal-mine.  In the matter of killing, war is\ngrowing impotent, and this in face of the fact that the machinery of war\nwas never so expensive in the past nor so dreadful.  War-equipment to-\nday, in time of peace, is more expensive than of old in time of war.  A\nstanding army costs more to maintain than it used to cost to conquer an\nempire.  It is more expensive to be ready to kill, than it used to be to\ndo the killing.  The price of a Dreadnought would furnish the whole army\nof Xerxes with killing weapons.  And, in spite of its magnificent\nequipment, war no longer kills as it used to when its methods were\nsimpler.  A bombardment by a modern fleet has been known to result in the\nkilling of one mule.  The casualties of a twentieth century war between\ntwo world-powers are such as to make a worker in an iron-foundry turn\ngreen with envy.  War has become a joke.  Men have made for themselves\nmonsters of battle which they cannot face in battle.  Subsistence is\ngenerous these days, life is not cheap, and it is not in the nature of\nflesh and blood to indulge in the carnage made possible by present-day\nmachinery.  This is not theoretical, as will be shown by a comparison of\ndeaths in battle and men involved, in the South African War and the\nSpanish-American War on the one hand, and the Civil War or the Napoleonic\nWars on the other.\n\nNot only has war, by its own evolution, rendered itself futile, but man\nhimself, with greater wisdom and higher ethics, is opposed to war.  He\nhas learned too much.  War is repugnant to his common sense.  He\nconceives it to be wrong, to be absurd, and to be very expensive.  For\nthe damage wrought and the results accomplished, it is not worth the\nprice.  Just as in the disputes of individuals the arbitration of a civil\ncourt instead of a blood feud is more practical, so, man decides, is\narbitration more practical in the disputes of nations.\n\nWar is passing, disease is being conquered, and man's food-getting\nefficiency is increasing.  It is because of these factors that there are\na billion and three quarters of people alive to-day instead of a billion,\nor three-quarters of a billion.  And it is because of these factors that\nthe world's population will very soon be two billions and climbing\nrapidly toward three billions.  The lifetime of the generation is\nincreasing steadily.  Men live longer these days.  Life is not so\nprecarious.  The newborn infant has a greater chance for survival than at\nany time in the past.  Surgery and sanitation reduce the fatalities that\naccompany the mischances of life and the ravages of disease.  Men and\nwomen, with deficiencies and weaknesses that in the past would have\neffected their rapid extinction, live to-day and father and mother a\nnumerous progeny.  And high as the food-getting efficiency may soar,\npopulation is bound to soar after it.  \"The abysmal fecundity\" of life\nhas not altered.  Given the food, and life will increase.  A small\npercentage of the billion and three-quarters that live to-day may hush\nthe clamour of life to be born, but it is only a small percentage.  In\nthis particular, the life in the man-animal is very like the life in the\nother animals.\n\nAnd still another change is coming in human affairs.  Though politicians\ngnash their teeth and cry anathema, and man, whose superficial\nbook-learning is vitiated by crystallised prejudice, assures us that\ncivilisation will go to smash, the trend of society, to-day, the world\nover, is toward socialism.  The old individualism is passing.  The state\ninterferes more and more in affairs that hitherto have been considered\nsacredly private.  And socialism, when the last word is said, is merely a\nnew economic and political system whereby more men can get food to eat.\nIn short, socialism is an improved food-getting efficiency.\n\nFurthermore, not only will socialism get food more easily and in greater\nquantity, but it will achieve a more equitable distribution of that food.\nSocialism promises, for a time, to give all men, women, and children all\nthey want to eat, and to enable them to eat all they want as often as\nthey want.  Subsistence will be pushed back, temporarily, an exceedingly\nlong way.  In consequence, the flood of life will rise like a tidal wave.\nThere will be more marriages and more children born.  The enforced\nsterility that obtains to-day for many millions, will no longer obtain.\nNor will the fecund millions in the slums and labour-ghettos, who to-day\ndie of all the ills due to chronic underfeeding and overcrowding, and who\ndie with their fecundity largely unrealised, die in that future day when\nthe increased food-getting efficiency of socialism will give them all\nthey want to eat.\n\nIt is undeniable that population will increase prodigiously-just as it\nhas increased prodigiously during the last few centuries, following upon\nthe increase in food-getting efficiency.  The magnitude of population in\nthat future day is well nigh unthinkable.  But there is only so much land\nand water on the surface of the earth.  Man, despite his marvellous\naccomplishments, will never be able to increase the diameter of the\nplanet.  The old days of virgin continents will be gone.  The habitable\nplanet, from ice-cap to ice-cap, will be inhabited.  And in the matter of\nfood-getting, as in everything else, man is only finite.  Undreamed-of\nefficiencies in food-getting may be achieved, but, soon or late, man will\nfind himself face to face with Malthus' grim law.  Not only will\npopulation catch up with subsistence, but it will press against\nsubsistence, and the pressure will be pitiless and savage.  Somewhere in\nthe future is a date when man will face, consciously, the bitter fact\nthat there is not food enough for all of him to eat.\n\nWhen this day comes, what then?  Will there be a recrudescence of old\nobsolete war?  In a saturated population life is always cheap, as it is\ncheap in China, in India, to-day.  Will new human drifts take place,\nquesting for room, carving earth-space out of crowded life.  Will the\nSword again sing:\n\n   \"Follow, O follow, then,\n   Heroes, my harvesters!\n   Where the tall grain is ripe\n   Thrust in your sickles!\n   Stripped and adust\n   In a stubble of empire\n   Scything and binding\n   The full sheaves of sovereignty.\"\n\nEven if, as of old, man should wander hungrily, sword in hand, slaying\nand being slain, the relief would be only temporary.  Even if one race\nalone should hew down the last survivor of all the other races, that one\nrace, drifting the world around, would saturate the planet with its own\nlife and again press against subsistence.  And in that day, the death\nrate and the birth rate will have to balance.  Men will have to die, or\nbe prevented from being born.  Undoubtedly a higher quality of life will\nobtain, and also a slowly decreasing fecundity.  But this decrease will\nbe so slow that the pressure against subsistence will remain.  The\ncontrol of progeny will be one of the most important problems of man and\none of the most important functions of the state.  Men will simply be not\npermitted to be born.\n\nDisease, from time to time, will ease the pressure.  Diseases are\nparasites, and it must not be forgotten that just as there are drifts in\nthe world of man, so are there drifts in the world of micro-organisms--\nhunger-quests for food.  Little is known of the micro-organic world,\nbut that little is appalling; and no census of it will ever be taken,\nfor there is the true, literal \"abysmal fecundity.\"  Multitudinous as\nman is, all his totality of individuals is as nothing in comparison\nwith the inconceivable vastness of numbers of the micro-organisms.  In\nyour body, or in mine, right now, are swarming more individual entities\nthan there are human beings in the world to-day.  It is to us an\ninvisible world.  We only guess its nearest confines.  With our powerful\nmicroscopes and ultramicroscopes, enlarging diameters twenty\nthousand times, we catch but the slightest glimpses of that profundity of\ninfinitesimal life.\n\nLittle is known of that world, save in a general way.  We know that out\nof it arise diseases, new to us, that afflict and destroy man.  We do not\nknow whether these diseases are merely the drifts, in a fresh direction,\nof already-existing breeds of micro-organisms, or whether they are new,\nabsolutely new, breeds themselves just spontaneously generated.  The\nlatter hypothesis is tenable, for we theorise that if spontaneous\ngeneration still occurs on the earth, it is far more likely to occur in\nthe form of simple organisms than of complicated organisms.\n\nAnother thing we know, and that is that it is in crowded populations that\nnew diseases arise.  They have done so in the past.  They do so to-day.\nAnd no matter how wise are our physicians and bacteriologists, no matter\nhow successfully they cope with these invaders, new invaders continue to\narise--new drifts of hungry life seeking to devour us.  And so we are\njustified in believing that in the saturated populations of the future,\nwhen life is suffocating in the pressure against subsistence, that new,\nand ever new, hosts of destroying micro-organisms will continue to arise\nand fling themselves upon earth-crowded man to give him room.  There may\neven be plagues of unprecedented ferocity that will depopulate great\nareas before the wit of man can overcome them.  And this we know: that no\nmatter how often these invisible hosts may be overcome by man's becoming\nimmune to them through a cruel and terrible selection, new hosts will\never arise of these micro-organisms that were in the world before he came\nand that will be here after he is gone.\n\nAfter he is gone?  Will he then some day be gone, and this planet know\nhim no more?  Is it thither that the human drift in all its totality is\ntrending?  God Himself is silent on this point, though some of His\nprophets have given us vivid representations of that last day when the\nearth shall pass into nothingness.  Nor does science, despite its radium\nspeculations and its attempted analyses of the ultimate nature of matter,\ngive us any other word than that man will pass.  So far as man's\nknowledge goes, law is universal.  Elements react under certain\nunchangeable conditions.  One of these conditions is temperature.  Whether\nit be in the test tube of the laboratory or the workshop of nature, all\norganic chemical reactions take place only within a restricted range of\nheat.  Man, the latest of the ephemera, is pitifully a creature of\ntemperature, strutting his brief day on the thermometer.  Behind him is a\npast wherein it was too warm for him to exist.  Ahead of him is a future\nwherein it will be too cold for him to exist.  He cannot adjust himself\nto that future, because he cannot alter universal law, because he cannot\nalter his own construction nor the molecules that compose him.\n\nIt would be well to ponder these lines of Herbert Spencer's which follow,\nand which embody, possibly, the wildest vision the scientific mind has\never achieved:\n\n   \"Motion as well as Matter being fixed in quantity, it would seem that\n   the change in the distribution of Matter which Motion effects, coming\n   to a limit in whichever direction it is carried, the indestructible\n   Motion thereupon necessitates a reverse distribution.  Apparently, the\n   universally-co-existent forces of attraction and repulsion, which, as\n   we have seen, necessitate rhythm in all minor changes throughout the\n   Universe, also necessitate rhythm in the totality of its\n   changes--produce now an immeasurable period during which the\n   attractive forces predominating, cause universal concentration, and\n   then an immeasurable period during which the repulsive forces\n   predominating, cause universal diffusion--alternate eras of Evolution\n   and Dissolution.  _And thus there is suggested the conception of a\n   past during which there have been successive Evolutions analogous to\n   that which is now going on; a future during which successive other\n   Evolutions may go on--ever the same in principle but never the same in\n   concrete result_.\"\n\nThat is it--the most we know--alternate eras of evolution and\ndissolution.  In the past there have been other evolutions similar to\nthat one in which we live, and in the future there may be other similar\nevolutions--that is all.  The principle of all these evolutions remains,\nbut the concrete results are never twice alike.  Man was not; he was; and\nagain he will not be.  In eternity which is beyond our comprehension, the\nparticular evolution of that solar satellite we call the \"Earth\" occupied\nbut a slight fraction of time.  And of that fraction of time man occupies\nbut a small portion.  All the whole human drift, from the first ape-man\nto the last savant, is but a phantom, a flash of light and a flutter of\nmovement across the infinite face of the starry night.\n\nWhen the thermometer drops, man ceases--with all his lusts and wrestlings\nand achievements; with all his race-adventures and race-tragedies; and\nwith all his red killings, billions upon billions of human lives\nmultiplied by as many billions more.  This is the last word of Science,\nunless there be some further, unguessed word which Science will some day\nfind and utter.  In the meantime it sees no farther than the starry void,\nwhere the \"fleeting systems lapse like foam.\"  Of what ledger-account is\nthe tiny life of man in a vastness where stars snuff out like candles and\ngreat suns blaze for a time-tick of eternity and are gone?\n\nAnd for us who live, no worse can happen than has happened to the\nearliest drifts of man, marked to-day by ruined cities of forgotten\ncivilisation--ruined cities, which, on excavation, are found to rest on\nruins of earlier cities, city upon city, and fourteen cities, down to a\nstratum where, still earlier, wandering herdsmen drove their flocks, and\nwhere, even preceding them, wild hunters chased their prey long after the\ncave-man and the man of the squatting-place cracked the knuckle-bones of\nwild animals and vanished from the earth.  There is nothing terrible\nabout it.  With Richard Hovey, when he faced his death, we can say:\n\"Behold!  I have lived!\"  And with another and greater one, we can lay\nourselves down with a will.  The one drop of living, the one taste of\nbeing, has been good; and perhaps our greatest achievement will be that\nwe dreamed immortality, even though we failed to realise it.\n\n\n\n\nSMALL-BOAT SAILING\n\n\nA sailor is born, not made.  And by \"sailor\" is meant, not the average\nefficient and hopeless creature who is found to-day in the forecastle of\ndeepwater ships, but the man who will take a fabric compounded of wood\nand iron and rope and canvas and compel it to obey his will on the\nsurface of the sea.  Barring captains and mates of big ships, the small-\nboat sailor is the real sailor.  He knows--he must know--how to make the\nwind carry his craft from one given point to another given point.  He\nmust know about tides and rips and eddies, bar and channel markings, and\nday and night signals; he must be wise in weather-lore; and he must be\nsympathetically familiar with the peculiar qualities of his boat which\ndifferentiate it from every other boat that was ever built and rigged.  He\nmust know how to gentle her about, as one instance of a myriad, and to\nfill her on the other tack without deadening her way or allowing her to\nfall off too far.\n\nThe deepwater sailor of to-day needs know none of these things.  And he\ndoesn't.  He pulls and hauls as he is ordered, swabs decks, washes paint,\nand chips iron-rust.  He knows nothing, and cares less.  Put him in a\nsmall boat and he is helpless.  He will cut an even better figure on the\nhurricane deck of a horse.\n\nI shall never forget my child-astonishment when I first encountered one\nof these strange beings.  He was a runaway English sailor.  I was a lad\nof twelve, with a decked-over, fourteen-foot, centre-board skiff which I\nhad taught myself to sail.  I sat at his feet as at the feet of a god,\nwhile he discoursed of strange lands and peoples, deeds of violence, and\nhair-raising gales at sea.  Then, one day, I took him for a sail.  With\nall the trepidation of the veriest little amateur, I hoisted sail and got\nunder way.  Here was a man, looking on critically, I was sure, who knew\nmore in one second about boats and the water than I could ever know.\nAfter an interval, in which I exceeded myself, he took the tiller and the\nsheet.  I sat on the little thwart amidships, open-mouthed, prepared to\nlearn what real sailing was.  My mouth remained open, for I learned what\na real sailor was in a small boat.  He couldn't trim the sheet to save\nhimself, he nearly capsized several times in squalls, and, once again, by\nblunderingly jibing over; he didn't know what a centre-board was for, nor\ndid he know that in running a boat before the wind one must sit in the\nmiddle instead of on the side; and finally, when we came back to the\nwharf, he ran the skiff in full tilt, shattering her nose and carrying\naway the mast-step.  And yet he was a really truly sailor fresh from the\nvasty deep.\n\nWhich points my moral.  A man can sail in the forecastles of big ships\nall his life and never know what real sailing is.  From the time I was\ntwelve, I listened to the lure of the sea.  When I was fifteen I was\ncaptain and owner of an oyster-pirate sloop.  By the time I was sixteen I\nwas sailing in scow-schooners, fishing salmon with the Greeks up the\nSacramento River, and serving as sailor on the Fish Patrol.  And I was a\ngood sailor, too, though all my cruising had been on San Francisco Bay\nand the rivers tributary to it.  I had never been on the ocean in my\nlife.\n\nThen, the month I was seventeen, I signed before the mast as an able\nseaman on a three-top-mast schooner bound on a seven-months' cruise\nacross the Pacific and back again.  As my shipmates promptly informed me,\nI had had my nerve with me to sign on as able seaman.  Yet behold, I\n_was_ an able seaman.  I had graduated from the right school.  It took no\nmore than minutes to learn the names and uses of the few new ropes.  It\nwas simple.  I did not do things blindly.  As a small-boat sailor I had\nlearned to reason out and know the _why_ of everything.  It is true, I\nhad to learn how to steer by compass, which took maybe half a minute; but\nwhen it came to steering \"full-and-by\" and \"close-and-by,\" I could beat\nthe average of my shipmates, because that was the very way I had always\nsailed.  Inside fifteen minutes I could box the compass around and back\nagain.  And there was little else to learn during that seven-months'\ncruise, except fancy rope-sailorising, such as the more complicated\nlanyard knots and the making of various kinds of sennit and rope-mats.\nThe point of all of which is that it is by means of small-boat sailing\nthat the real sailor is best schooled.\n\nAnd if a man is a born sailor, and has gone to the school of the sea,\nnever in all his life can he get away from the sea again.  The salt of it\nis in his bones as well as his nostrils, and the sea will call to him\nuntil he dies.  Of late years, I have found easier ways of earning a\nliving.  I have quit the forecastle for keeps, but always I come back to\nthe sea.  In my case it is usually San Francisco Bay, than which no\nlustier, tougher, sheet of water can be found for small-boat sailing.\n\nIt really blows on San Francisco Bay.  During the winter, which is the\nbest cruising season, we have southeasters, southwesters, and occasional\nhowling northers.  Throughout the summer we have what we call the \"sea-\nbreeze,\" an unfailing wind off the Pacific that on most afternoons in the\nweek blows what the Atlantic Coast yachtsmen would name a gale.  They are\nalways surprised by the small spread of canvas our yachts carry.  Some of\nthem, with schooners they have sailed around the Horn, have looked\nproudly at their own lofty sticks and huge spreads, then patronisingly\nand even pityingly at ours.  Then, perchance, they have joined in a club\ncruise from San Francisco to Mare Island.  They found the morning run up\nthe Bay delightful.  In the afternoon, when the brave west wind ramped\nacross San Pablo Bay and they faced it on the long beat home, things were\nsomewhat different.  One by one, like a flight of swallows, our more\nmeagrely sparred and canvassed yachts went by, leaving them wallowing and\ndead and shortening down in what they called a gale but which we called a\ndandy sailing breeze.  The next time they came out, we would notice their\nsticks cut down, their booms shortened, and their after-leeches nearer\nthe luffs by whole cloths.\n\nAs for excitement, there is all the difference in the world between a\nship in trouble at sea, and a small boat in trouble on land-locked water.\nYet for genuine excitement and thrill, give me the small boat.  Things\nhappen so quickly, and there are always so few to do the work--and hard\nwork, too, as the small-boat sailor knows.  I have toiled all night, both\nwatches on deck, in a typhoon off the coast of Japan, and been less\nexhausted than by two hours' work at reefing down a thirty-foot sloop and\nheaving up two anchors on a lee shore in a screaming southeaster.\n\nHard work and excitement?  Let the wind baffle and drop in a heavy tide-\nway just as you are sailing your little sloop through a narrow\ndraw-bridge.  Behold your sails, upon which you are depending, flap with\nsudden emptiness, and then see the impish wind, with a haul of eight\npoints, fill your jib aback with a gusty puff.  Around she goes, and\nsweeps, not through the open draw, but broadside on against the solid\npiles.  Hear the roar of the tide, sucking through the trestle.  And hear\nand see your pretty, fresh-painted boat crash against the piles.  Feel\nher stout little hull give to the impact.  See the rail actually pinch\nin.  Hear your canvas tearing, and see the black, square-ended timbers\nthrusting holes through it.  Smash!  There goes your topmast stay, and\nthe topmast reels over drunkenly above you.  There is a ripping and\ncrunching.  If it continues, your starboard shrouds will be torn out.\nGrab a rope--any rope--and take a turn around a pile.  But the free end\nof the rope is too short.  You can't make it fast, and you hold on and\nwildly yell for your one companion to get a turn with another and longer\nrope.  Hold on!  You hold on till you are purple in the face, till it\nseems your arms are dragging out of their sockets, till the blood bursts\nfrom the ends of your fingers.  But you hold, and your partner gets the\nlonger rope and makes it fast.  You straighten up and look at your hands.\nThey are ruined.  You can scarcely relax the crooks of the fingers.  The\npain is sickening.  But there is no time.  The skiff, which is always\nperverse, is pounding against the barnacles on the piles which threaten\nto scrape its gunwale off.  It's drop the peak!  Down jib!  Then you run\nlines, and pull and haul and heave, and exchange unpleasant remarks with\nthe bridge-tender who is always willing to meet you more than half way in\nsuch repartee.  And finally, at the end of an hour, with aching back,\nsweat-soaked shirt, and slaughtered hands, you are through and swinging\nalong on the placid, beneficent tide between narrow banks where the\ncattle stand knee-deep and gaze wonderingly at you.  Excitement!  Work!\nCan you beat it in a calm day on the deep sea?\n\nI've tried it both ways.  I remember labouring in a fourteen days' gale\noff the coast of New Zealand.  We were a tramp collier, rusty and\nbattered, with six thousand tons of coal in our hold.  Life lines were\nstretched fore and aft; and on our weather side, attached to smokestack\nguys and rigging, were huge rope-nettings, hung there for the purpose of\nbreaking the force of the seas and so saving our mess-room doors.  But\nthe doors were smashed and the mess-rooms washed out just the same.  And\nyet, out of it all, arose but the one feeling, namely, of monotony.\n\nIn contrast with the foregoing, about the liveliest eight days of my life\nwere spent in a small boat on the west coast of Korea.  Never mind why I\nwas thus voyaging up the Yellow Sea during the month of February in below-\nzero weather.  The point is that I was in an open boat, a _sampan_, on a\nrocky coast where there were no light-houses and where the tides ran from\nthirty to sixty feet.  My crew were Japanese fishermen.  We did not speak\neach other's language.  Yet there was nothing monotonous about that trip.\nNever shall I forget one particular cold bitter dawn, when, in the thick\nof driving snow, we took in sail and dropped our small anchor.  The wind\nwas howling out of the northwest, and we were on a lee shore.  Ahead and\nastern, all escape was cut off by rocky headlands, against whose bases\nburst the unbroken seas.  To windward a short distance, seen only between\nthe snow-squalls, was a low rocky reef.  It was this that inadequately\nprotected us from the whole Yellow Sea that thundered in upon us.\n\nThe Japanese crawled under a communal rice mat and went to sleep.  I\njoined them, and for several hours we dozed fitfully.  Then a sea deluged\nus out with icy water, and we found several inches of snow on top the\nmat.  The reef to windward was disappearing under the rising tide, and\nmoment by moment the seas broke more strongly over the rocks.  The\nfishermen studied the shore anxiously.  So did I, and with a sailor's\neye, though I could see little chance for a swimmer to gain that surf-\nhammered line of rocks.  I made signs toward the headlands on either\nflank.  The Japanese shook their heads.  I indicated that dreadful lee\nshore.  Still they shook their heads and did nothing.  My conclusion was\nthat they were paralysed by the hopelessness of the situation.  Yet our\nextremity increased with every minute, for the rising tide was robbing us\nof the reef that served as buffer.  It soon became a case of swamping at\nour anchor.  Seas were splashing on board in growing volume, and we baled\nconstantly.  And still my fishermen crew eyed the surf-battered shore and\ndid nothing.\n\nAt last, after many narrow escapes from complete swamping, the fishermen\ngot into action.  All hands tailed on to the anchor and hove it up.\nFor'ard, as the boat's head paid off, we set a patch of sail about the\nsize of a flour-sack.  And we headed straight for shore.  I unlaced my\nshoes, unbottoned my great-coat and coat, and was ready to make a quick\npartial strip a minute or so before we struck.  But we didn't strike,\nand, as we rushed in, I saw the beauty of the situation.  Before us\nopened a narrow channel, frilled at its mouth with breaking seas.  Yet,\nlong before, when I had scanned the shore closely, there had been no such\nchannel.  _I had forgotten the thirty-foot tide_.  And it was for this\ntide that the Japanese had so precariously waited.  We ran the frill of\nbreakers, curved into a tiny sheltered bay where the water was scarcely\nflawed by the gale, and landed on a beach where the salt sea of the last\ntide lay frozen in long curving lines.  And this was one gale of three in\nthe course of those eight days in the _sampan_.  Would it have been\nbeaten on a ship?  I fear me the ship would have gone aground on the\noutlying reef and that its people would have been incontinently and\nmonotonously drowned.\n\nThere are enough surprises and mishaps in a three-days' cruise in a small\nboat to supply a great ship on the ocean for a full year.  I remember,\nonce, taking out on her trial trip a little thirty-footer I had just\nbought.  In six days we had two stiff blows, and, in addition, one proper\nsouthwester and one rip-snorting southeaster.  The slight intervals\nbetween these blows were dead calms.  Also, in the six days, we were\naground three times.  Then, too, we tied up to the bank in the Sacramento\nRiver, and, grounding by an accident on the steep slope on a falling\ntide, nearly turned a side somersault down the bank.  In a stark calm and\nheavy tide in the Carquinez Straits, where anchors skate on the channel-\nscoured bottom, we were sucked against a big dock and smashed and bumped\ndown a quarter of a mile of its length before we could get clear.  Two\nhours afterward, on San Pablo Bay, the wind was piping up and we were\nreefing down.  It is no fun to pick up a skiff adrift in a heavy sea and\ngale.  That was our next task, for our skiff, swamping, parted both\ntowing painters we had bent on.  Before we recovered it we had nearly\nkilled ourselves with exhaustion, and we certainly had strained the sloop\nin every part from keelson to truck.  And to cap it all, coming into our\nhome port, beating up the narrowest part of the San Antonio Estuary, we\nhad a shave of inches from collision with a big ship in tow of a tug.  I\nhave sailed the ocean in far larger craft a year at a time, in which\nperiod occurred no such chapter of moving incident.\n\nAfter all, the mishaps are almost the best part of small-boat sailing.\nLooking back, they prove to be punctuations of joy.  At the time they try\nyour mettle and your vocabulary, and may make you so pessimistic as to\nbelieve that God has a grudge against you--but afterward, ah, afterward,\nwith what pleasure you remember them and with what gusto do you relate\nthem to your brother skippers in the fellowhood of small-boat sailing!\n\nA narrow, winding slough; a half tide, exposing mud surfaced with\ngangrenous slime; the water itself filthy and discoloured by the waste\nfrom the vats of a near-by tannery; the marsh grass on either side\nmottled with all the shades of a decaying orchid; a crazy, ramshackled,\nancient wharf; and at the end of the wharf a small, white-painted sloop.\nNothing romantic about it.  No hint of adventure.  A splendid pictorial\nargument against the alleged joys of small-boat sailing.  Possibly that\nis what Cloudesley and I thought, that sombre, leaden morning as we\nturned out to cook breakfast and wash decks.  The latter was my stunt,\nbut one look at the dirty water overside and another at my fresh-painted\ndeck, deterred me.  After breakfast, we started a game of chess.  The\ntide continued to fall, and we felt the sloop begin to list.  We played\non until the chess men began to fall over.  The list increased, and we\nwent on deck.  Bow-line and stern-line were drawn taut.  As we looked the\nboat listed still farther with an abrupt jerk.  The lines were now very\ntaut.\n\n\"As soon as her belly touches the bottom she will stop,\" I said.\n\nCloudesley sounded with a boat-hook along the outside.\n\n\"Seven feet of water,\" he announced.  \"The bank is almost up and down.\nThe first thing that touches will be her mast when she turns bottom up.\"\n\nAn ominous, minute snapping noise came from the stern-line.  Even as we\nlooked, we saw a strand fray and part.  Then we jumped.  Scarcely had we\nbent another line between the stern and the wharf, when the original line\nparted.  As we bent another line for'ard, the original one there crackled\nand parted.  After that, it was an inferno of work and excitement.\n\nWe ran more and more lines, and more and more lines continued to part,\nand more and more the pretty boat went over on her side.  We bent all our\nspare lines; we unrove sheets and halyards; we used our two-inch hawser;\nwe fastened lines part way up the mast, half way up, and everywhere else.\nWe toiled and sweated and enounced our mutual and sincere conviction that\nGod's grudge still held against us.  Country yokels came down on the\nwharf and sniggered at us.  When Cloudesley let a coil of rope slip down\nthe inclined deck into the vile slime and fished it out with seasick\ncountenance, the yokels sniggered louder and it was all I could do to\nprevent him from climbing up on the wharf and committing murder.\n\nBy the time the sloop's deck was perpendicular, we had unbent the boom-\nlift from below, made it fast to the wharf, and, with the other end fast\nnearly to the mast-head, heaved it taut with block and tackle.  The lift\nwas of steel wire.  We were confident that it could stand the strain, but\nwe doubted the holding-power of the stays that held the mast.\n\nThe tide had two more hours to ebb (and it was the big run-out), which\nmeant that five hours must elapse ere the returning tide would give us a\nchance to learn whether or not the sloop would rise to it and right\nherself.\n\nThe bank was almost up and down, and at the bottom, directly beneath us,\nthe fast-ebbing tide left a pit of the vilest, illest-smelling, illest-\nappearing muck to be seen in many a day's ride.  Said Cloudesley to me\ngazing down into it:\n\n\"I love you as a brother.  I'd fight for you.  I'd face roaring lions,\nand sudden death by field and flood.  But just the same, don't you fall\ninto that.\"  He shuddered nauseously.  \"For if you do, I haven't the grit\nto pull you out.  I simply couldn't.  You'd be awful.  The best I could\ndo would be to take a boat-hook and shove you down out of sight.\"\n\nWe sat on the upper side-wall of the cabin, dangled our legs down the top\nof the cabin, leaned our backs against the deck, and played chess until\nthe rising tide and the block and tackle on the boom-lift enabled us to\nget her on a respectable keel again.  Years afterward, down in the South\nSeas, on the island of Ysabel, I was caught in a similar predicament.  In\norder to clean her copper, I had careened the _Snark_ broadside on to the\nbeach and outward.  When the tide rose, she refused to rise.  The water\ncrept in through the scuppers, mounted over the rail, and the level of\nthe ocean slowly crawled up the slant of the deck.  We battened down the\nengine-room hatch, and the sea rose to it and over it and climbed\nperilously near to the cabin companion-way and skylight.  We were all\nsick with fever, but we turned out in the blazing tropic sun and toiled\nmadly for several hours.  We carried our heaviest lines ashore from our\nmast-heads and heaved with our heaviest purchase until everything\ncrackled including ourselves.  We would spell off and lie down like dead\nmen, then get up and heave and crackle again.  And in the end, our lower\nrail five feet under water and the wavelets lapping the companion-way\ncombing, the sturdy little craft shivered and shook herself and pointed\nher masts once more to the zenith.\n\nThere is never lack of exercise in small-boat sailing, and the hard work\nis not only part of the fun of it, but it beats the doctors.  San\nFrancisco Bay is no mill pond.  It is a large and draughty and variegated\npiece of water.  I remember, one winter evening, trying to enter the\nmouth of the Sacramento.  There was a freshet on the river, the flood\ntide from the bay had been beaten back into a strong ebb, and the lusty\nwest wind died down with the sun.  It was just sunset, and with a fair to\nmiddling breeze, dead aft, we stood still in the rapid current.  We were\nsquarely in the mouth of the river; but there was no anchorage and we\ndrifted backward, faster and faster, and dropped anchor outside as the\nlast breath of wind left us.  The night came on, beautiful and warm and\nstarry.  My one companion cooked supper, while on deck I put everything\nin shape Bristol fashion.  When we turned in at nine o'clock the weather-\npromise was excellent.  (If I had carried a barometer I'd have known\nbetter.)  By two in the morning our shrouds were thrumming in a piping\nbreeze, and I got up and gave her more scope on her hawser.  Inside\nanother hour there was no doubt that we were in for a southeaster.\n\nIt is not nice to leave a warm bed and get out of a bad anchorage in a\nblack blowy night, but we arose to the occasion, put in two reefs, and\nstarted to heave up.  The winch was old, and the strain of the jumping\nhead sea was too much for it.  With the winch out of commission, it was\nimpossible to heave up by hand.  We knew, because we tried it and\nslaughtered our hands.  Now a sailor hates to lose an anchor.  It is a\nmatter of pride.  Of course, we could have buoyed ours and slipped it.\nInstead, however, I gave her still more hawser, veered her, and dropped\nthe second anchor.\n\nThere was little sleep after that, for first one and then the other of us\nwould be rolled out of our bunks.  The increasing size of the seas told\nus we were dragging, and when we struck the scoured channel we could tell\nby the feel of it that our two anchors were fairly skating across.  It\nwas a deep channel, the farther edge of it rising steeply like the wall\nof a canyon, and when our anchors started up that wall they hit in and\nheld.\n\nYet, when we fetched up, through the darkness we could hear the seas\nbreaking on the solid shore astern, and so near was it that we shortened\nthe skiff's painter.\n\nDaylight showed us that between the stern of the skiff and destruction\nwas no more than a score of feet.  And how it did blow!  There were\ntimes, in the gusts, when the wind must have approached a velocity of\nseventy or eighty miles an hour.  But the anchors held, and so nobly that\nour final anxiety was that the for'ard bitts would be jerked clean out of\nthe boat.  All day the sloop alternately ducked her nose under and sat\ndown on her stern; and it was not till late afternoon that the storm\nbroke in one last and worst mad gust.  For a full five minutes an\nabsolute dead calm prevailed, and then, with the suddenness of a\nthunderclap, the wind snorted out of the southwest--a shift of eight\npoints and a boisterous gale.  Another night of it was too much for us,\nand we hove up by hand in a cross head-sea.  It was not stiff work.  It\nwas heart-breaking.  And I know we were both near to crying from the hurt\nand the exhaustion.  And when we did get the first anchor up-and-down we\ncouldn't break it out.  Between seas we snubbed her nose down to it, took\nplenty of turns, and stood clear as she jumped.  Almost everything\nsmashed and parted except the anchor-hold.  The chocks were jerked out,\nthe rail torn off, and the very covering-board splintered, and still the\nanchor held.  At last, hoisting the reefed mainsail and slacking off a\nfew of the hard-won feet of the chain, we sailed the anchor out.  It was\nnip and tuck, though, and there were times when the boat was knocked down\nflat.  We repeated the manoeuvre with the remaining anchor, and in the\ngathering darkness fled into the shelter of the river's mouth.\n\nI was born so long ago that I grew up before the era of gasolene.  As a\nresult, I am old-fashioned.  I prefer a sail-boat to a motor-boat, and it\nis my belief that boat-sailing is a finer, more difficult, and sturdier\nart than running a motor.  Gasolene engines are becoming fool-proof, and\nwhile it is unfair to say that any fool can run an engine, it is fair to\nsay that almost any one can.  Not so, when it comes to sailing a boat.\nMore skill, more intelligence, and a vast deal more training are\nnecessary.  It is the finest training in the world for boy and youth and\nman.  If the boy is very small, equip him with a small, comfortable\nskiff.  He will do the rest.  He won't need to be taught.  Shortly he\nwill be setting a tiny leg-of-mutton and steering with an oar.  Then he\nwill begin to talk keels and centreboards and want to take his blankets\nout and stop aboard all night.\n\nBut don't be afraid for him.  He is bound to run risks and encounter\naccidents.  Remember, there are accidents in the nursery as well as out\non the water.  More boys have died from hot-house culture than have died\non boats large and small; and more boys have been made into strong and\nreliant men by boat-sailing than by lawn-croquet and dancing-school.\n\nAnd once a sailor, always a sailor.  The savour of the salt never stales.\nThe sailor never grows so old that he does not care to go back for one\nmore wrestling bout with wind and wave.  I know it of myself.  I have\nturned rancher, and live beyond sight of the sea.  Yet I can stay away\nfrom it only so long.  After several months have passed, I begin to grow\nrestless.  I find myself day-dreaming over incidents of the last cruise,\nor wondering if the striped bass are running on Wingo Slough, or eagerly\nreading the newspapers for reports of the first northern flights of\nducks.  And then, suddenly, there is a hurried pack of suit-cases and\noverhauling of gear, and we are off for Vallejo where the little _Roamer_\nlies, waiting, always waiting, for the skiff to come alongside, for the\nlighting of the fire in the galley-stove, for the pulling off of gaskets,\nthe swinging up of the mainsail, and the rat-tat-tat of the reef-points,\nfor the heaving short and the breaking out, and for the twirling of the\nwheel as she fills away and heads up Bay or down.\n\nJACK LONDON\nOn Board _Roamer_,\nSonoma Creek,\nApril 15, 1911\n\n\n\n\nFOUR HORSES AND A SAILOR\n\n\n\"Huh!  Drive four horses!  I wouldn't sit behind you--not for a thousand\ndollars--over them mountain roads.\"\n\nSo said Henry, and he ought to have known, for he drives four horses\nhimself.\n\nSaid another Glen Ellen friend: \"What?  London?  He drive four horses?\nCan't drive one!\"\n\nAnd the best of it is that he was right.  Even after managing to get a\nfew hundred miles with my four horses, I don't know how to drive one.\nJust the other day, swinging down a steep mountain road and rounding an\nabrupt turn, I came full tilt on a horse and buggy being driven by a\nwoman up the hill.  We could not pass on the narrow road, where was only\na foot to spare, and my horses did not know how to back, especially up-\nhill.  About two hundred yards down the hill was a spot where we could\npass.  The driver of the buggy said she didn't dare back down because she\nwas not sure of the brake.  And as I didn't know how to tackle one horse,\nI didn't try it.  So we unhitched her horse and backed down by hand.\nWhich was very well, till it came to hitching the horse to the buggy\nagain.  She didn't know how.  I didn't either, and I had depended on her\nknowledge.  It took us about half an hour, with frequent debates and\nconsultations, though it is an absolute certainty that never in its life\nwas that horse hitched in that particular way.\n\nNo; I can't harness up one horse.  But I can four, which compels me to\nback up again to get to my beginning.  Having selected Sonoma Valley for\nour abiding place, Charmian and I decided it was about time we knew what\nwe had in our own county and the neighbouring ones.  How to do it, was\nthe first question.  Among our many weaknesses is the one of being old-\nfashioned.  We don't mix with gasolene very well.  And, as true sailors\nshould, we naturally gravitate toward horses.  Being one of those lucky\nindividuals who carries his office under his hat, I should have to take a\ntypewriter and a load of books along.  This put saddle-horses out of the\nrunning.  Charmian suggested driving a span.  She had faith in me;\nbesides, she could drive a span herself.  But when I thought of the many\nmountains to cross, and of crossing them for three months with a poor\ntired span, I vetoed the proposition and said we'd have to come back to\ngasolene after all.  This she vetoed just as emphatically, and a deadlock\nobtained until I received inspiration.\n\n\"Why not drive four horses?\" I said.\n\n\"But you don't know how to drive four horses,\" was her objection.\n\nI threw my chest out and my shoulders back.  \"What man has done, I can\ndo,\" I proclaimed grandly.  \"And please don't forget that when we sailed\non the _Snark_ I knew nothing of navigation, and that I taught myself as\nI sailed.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" she said.  (And there's faith for you! )  \"They shall be\nfour saddle horses, and we'll strap our saddles on behind the rig.\"\n\nIt was my turn to object.  \"Our saddle horses are not broken to harness.\"\n\n\"Then break them.\"\n\nAnd what I knew about horses, much less about breaking them, was just\nabout as much as any sailor knows.  Having been kicked, bucked off,\nfallen over backward upon, and thrown out and run over, on very numerous\noccasions, I had a mighty vigorous respect for horses; but a wife's faith\nmust be lived up to, and I went at it.\n\nKing was a polo pony from St. Louis, and Prince a many-gaited love-horse\nfrom Pasadena.  The hardest thing was to get them to dig in and pull.\nThey rollicked along on the levels and galloped down the hills, but when\nthey struck an up-grade and felt the weight of the breaking-cart, they\nstopped and turned around and looked at me.  But I passed them, and my\ntroubles began.  Milda was fourteen years old, an unadulterated broncho,\nand in temperament was a combination of mule and jack-rabbit blended\nequally.  If you pressed your hand on her flank and told her to get over,\nshe lay down on you.  If you got her by the head and told her to back,\nshe walked forward over you.  And if you got behind her and shoved and\ntold her to \"Giddap!\" she sat down on you.  Also, she wouldn't walk.  For\nendless weary miles I strove with her, but never could I get her to walk\na step.  Finally, she was a manger-glutton.  No matter how near or far\nfrom the stable, when six o'clock came around she bolted for home and\nnever missed the directest cross-road.  Many times I rejected her.\n\nThe fourth and most rejected horse of all was the Outlaw.  From the age\nof three to seven she had defied all horse-breakers and broken a number\nof them.  Then a long, lanky cowboy, with a fifty-pound saddle and a\nMexican bit had got her proud goat.  I was the next owner.  She was my\nfavourite riding horse.  Charmian said I'd have to put her in as a\nwheeler where I would have more control over her.  Now Charmian had a\nfavourite riding mare called Maid.  I suggested Maid as a substitute.\nCharmian pointed out that my mare was a branded range horse, while hers\nwas a near-thoroughbred, and that the legs of her mare would be ruined\nforever if she were driven for three months.  I acknowledged her mare's\nthoroughbredness, and at the same time defied her to find any\nthoroughbred with as small and delicately-viciously pointed ears as my\nOutlaw.  She indicated Maid's exquisitely thin shinbone.  I measured the\nOutlaw's.  It was equally thin, although, I insinuated, possibly more\ndurable.  This stabbed Charmian's pride.  Of course her near-thoroughbred\nMaid, carrying the blood of \"old\" Lexington, Morella, and a streak of the\nsuper-enduring Morgan, could run, walk, and work my unregistered Outlaw\ninto the ground; and that was the very precise reason why such a paragon\nof a saddle animal should not be degraded by harness.\n\nSo it was that Charmian remained obdurate, until, one day, I got her\nbehind the Outlaw for a forty-mile drive.  For every inch of those forty\nmiles the Outlaw kicked and jumped, in between the kicks and jumps\nfinding time and space in which to seize its team-mate by the back of the\nneck and attempt to drag it to the ground.  Another trick the Outlaw\ndeveloped during that drive was suddenly to turn at right angles in the\ntraces and endeavour to butt its team-mate over the grade.  Reluctantly\nand nobly did Charmian give in and consent to the use of Maid.  The\nOutlaw's shoes were pulled off, and she was turned out on range.\n\nFinally, the four horses were hooked to the rig--a light Studebaker trap.\nWith two hours and a half of practice, in which the excitement was not\nabated by several jack-poles and numerous kicking matches, I announced\nmyself as ready for the start.  Came the morning, and Prince, who was to\nhave been a wheeler with Maid, showed up with a badly kicked shoulder.  He\ndid not exactly show up; we had to find him, for he was unable to walk.\nHis leg swelled and continually swelled during the several days we waited\nfor him.  Remained only the Outlaw.  In from pasture she came, shoes were\nnailed on, and she was harnessed into the wheel.  Friends and relatives\nstrove to press accident policies on me, but Charmian climbed up\nalongside, and Nakata got into the rear seat with the typewriter--Nakata,\nwho sailed cabin-boy on the Snark for two years and who had shown himself\nafraid of nothing, not even of me and my amateur jamborees in\nexperimenting with new modes of locomotion.  And we did very nicely,\nthank you, especially after the first hour or so, during which time the\nOutlaw had kicked about fifty various times, chiefly to the damage of her\nown legs and the paintwork, and after she had bitten a couple of hundred\ntimes, to the damage of Maid's neck and Charmian's temper.  It was hard\nenough to have her favourite mare in the harness without also enduring\nthe spectacle of its being eaten alive.\n\nOur leaders were joys.  King being a polo pony and Milda a rabbit, they\nrounded curves beautifully and darted ahead like coyotes out of the way\nof the wheelers.  Milda's besetting weakness was a frantic desire not to\nhave the lead-bar strike her hocks.  When this happened, one of three\nthings occurred: either she sat down on the lead-bar, kicked it up in the\nair until she got her back under it, or exploded in a straight-ahead,\nharness-disrupting jump.  Not until she carried the lead-bar clean away\nand danced a break-down on it and the traces, did she behave decently.\nNakata and I made the repairs with good old-fashioned bale-rope, which is\nstronger than wrought-iron any time, and we went on our way.\n\nIn the meantime I was learning--I shall not say to tool a\nfour-in-hand--but just simply to drive four horses.  Now it is all right\nenough to begin with four work-horses pulling a load of several tons.  But\nto begin with four light horses, all running, and a light rig that seems\nto outrun them--well, when things happen they happen quickly.  My\nweakness was total ignorance.  In particular, my fingers lacked training,\nand I made the mistake of depending on my eyes to handle the reins.  This\nbrought me up against a disastrous optical illusion.  The bight of the\noff head-line, being longer and heavier than that of the off wheel-line,\nhung lower.  In a moment requiring quick action, I invariably mistook the\ntwo lines.  Pulling on what I thought was the wheel-line, in order to\nstraighten the team, I would see the leaders swing abruptly around into a\njack-pole.  Now for sensations of sheer impotence, nothing can compare\nwith a jack-pole, when the horrified driver beholds his leaders prancing\ngaily up the road and his wheelers jogging steadily down the road, all at\nthe same time and all harnessed together and to the same rig.\n\nI no longer jack-pole, and I don't mind admitting how I got out of the\nhabit.  It was my eyes that enslaved my fingers into ill practices.  So I\nshut my eyes and let the fingers go it alone.  To-day my fingers are\nindependent of my eyes and work automatically.  I do not see what my\nfingers do.  They just do it.  All I see is the satisfactory result.\n\nStill we managed to get over the ground that first day--down sunny Sonoma\nValley to the old town of Sonoma, founded by General Vallejo as the\nremotest outpost on the northern frontier for the purpose of holding back\nthe Gentiles, as the wild Indians of those days were called.  Here\nhistory was made.  Here the last Spanish mission was reared; here the\nBear flag was raised; and here Kit Carson, and Fremont, and all our early\nadventurers came and rested in the days before the days of gold.\n\nWe swung on over the low, rolling hills, through miles of dairy farms and\nchicken ranches where every blessed hen is white, and down the slopes to\nPetaluma Valley.  Here, in 1776, Captain Quiros came up Petaluma Creek\nfrom San Pablo Bay in quest of an outlet to Bodega Bay on the coast.  And\nhere, later, the Russians, with Alaskan hunters, carried skin boats\nacross from Fort Ross to poach for sea-otters on the Spanish preserve of\nSan Francisco Bay.  Here, too, still later, General Vallejo built a fort,\nwhich still stands--one of the finest examples of Spanish adobe that\nremain to us.  And here, at the old fort, to bring the chronicle up to\ndate, our horses proceeded to make peculiarly personal history with\nastonishing success and dispatch.  King, our peerless, polo-pony leader,\nwent lame.  So hopelessly lame did he go that no expert, then and\nafterward, could determine whether the lameness was in his frogs, hoofs,\nlegs, shoulders, or head.  Maid picked up a nail and began to limp.\nMilda, figuring the day already sufficiently spent and maniacal with\nmanger-gluttony, began to rabbit-jump.  All that held her was the bale-\nrope.  And the Outlaw, game to the last, exceeded all previous\nexhibitions of skin-removing, paint-marring, and horse-eating.\n\nAt Petaluma we rested over while King was returned to the ranch and\nPrince sent to us.  Now Prince had proved himself an excellent wheeler,\nyet he had to go into the lead and let the Outlaw retain his old place.\nThere is an axiom that a good wheeler is a poor leader.  I object to the\nlast adjective.  A good wheeler makes an infinitely worse kind of a\nleader than that.  I know . . . now.  I ought to know.  Since that day I\nhave driven Prince a few hundred miles in the lead.  He is neither any\nbetter nor any worse than the first mile he ran in the lead; and his\nworst is even extremely worse than what you are thinking.  Not that he is\nvicious.  He is merely a good-natured rogue who shakes hands for sugar,\nsteps on your toes out of sheer excessive friendliness, and just goes on\nloving you in your harshest moments.\n\nBut he won't get out of the way.  Also, whenever he is reproved for being\nin the wrong, he accuses Milda of it and bites the back of her neck.  So\nbad has this become that whenever I yell \"Prince!\" in a loud voice, Milda\nimmediately rabbit-jumps to the side, straight ahead, or sits down on the\nlead-bar.  All of which is quite disconcerting.  Picture it yourself.  You\nare swinging round a sharp, down-grade, mountain curve, at a fast trot.\nThe rock wall is the outside of the curve.  The inside of the curve is a\nprecipice.  The continuance of the curve is a narrow, unrailed bridge.\nYou hit the curve, throwing the leaders in against the wall and making\nthe polo-horse do the work.  All is lovely.  The leaders are hugging the\nwall like nestling doves.  But the moment comes in the evolution when the\nleaders must shoot out ahead.  They really must shoot, or else they'll\nhit the wall and miss the bridge.  Also, behind them are the wheelers,\nand the rig, and you have just eased the brake in order to put sufficient\nsnap into the manoeuvre.  If ever team-work is required, now is the time.\nMilda tries to shoot.  She does her best, but Prince, bubbling over with\nroguishness, lags behind.  He knows the trick.  Milda is half a length\nahead of him.  He times it to the fraction of a second.  Maid, in the\nwheel, over-running him, naturally bites him.  This disturbs the Outlaw,\nwho has been behaving beautifully, and she immediately reaches across for\nMaid.  Simultaneously, with a fine display of firm conviction that it's\nall Milda's fault, Prince sinks his teeth into the back of Milda's\ndefenceless neck.  The whole thing has occurred in less than a second.\nUnder the surprise and pain of the bite, Milda either jumps ahead to the\nimminent peril of harness and lead-bar, or smashes into the wall, stops\nshort with the lead-bar over her back, and emits a couple of hysterical\nkicks.  The Outlaw invariably selects this moment to remove paint.  And\nafter things are untangled and you have had time to appreciate the close\nshave, you go up to Prince and reprove him with your choicest vocabulary.\nAnd Prince, gazelle-eyed and tender, offers to shake hands with you for\nsugar.  I leave it to any one: a boat would never act that way.\n\nWe have some history north of the Bay.  Nearly three centuries and a half\nago, that doughty pirate and explorer, Sir Francis Drake, combing the\nPacific for Spanish galleons, anchored in the bight formed by Point\nReyes, on which to-day is one of the richest dairy regions in the world.\nHere, less than two decades after Drake, Sebastien Carmenon piled up on\nthe rocks with a silk-laden galleon from the Philippines.  And in this\nsame bay of Drake, long afterward, the Russian fur-poachers rendezvous'd\ntheir _bidarkas_ and stole in through the Golden Gate to the forbidden\nwaters of San Francisco Bay.\n\nFarther up the coast, in Sonoma County, we pilgrimaged to the sites of\nthe Russian settlements.  At Bodega Bay, south of what to-day is called\nRussian River, was their anchorage, while north of the river they built\ntheir fort.  And much of Fort Ross still stands.  Log-bastions, church,\nand stables hold their own, and so well, with rusty hinges creaking, that\nwe warmed ourselves at the hundred-years-old double fireplace and slept\nunder the hand-hewn roof beams still held together by spikes of\nhand-wrought iron.\n\nWe went to see where history had been made, and we saw scenery as well.\nOne of our stretches in a day's drive was from beautiful Inverness on\nTomales Bay, down the Olema Valley to Bolinas Bay, along the eastern\nshore of that body of water to Willow Camp, and up over the sea-bluffs,\naround the bastions of Tamalpais, and down to Sausalito.  From the head\nof Bolinas Bay to Willow Camp the drive on the edge of the beach, and\nactually, for half-mile stretches, in the waters of the bay itself, was a\ndelightful experience.  The wonderful part was to come.  Very few San\nFranciscans, much less Californians, know of that drive from Willow Camp,\nto the south and east, along the poppy-blown cliffs, with the sea\nthundering in the sheer depths hundreds of feet below and the Golden Gate\nopening up ahead, disclosing smoky San Francisco on her many hills.  Far\noff, blurred on the breast of the sea, can be seen the Farallones, which\nSir Francis Drake passed on a S. W. course in the thick of what he\ndescribes as a \"stynking fog.\"  Well might he call it that, and a few\nother names, for it was the fog that robbed him of the glory of\ndiscovering San Francisco Bay.\n\nIt was on this part of the drive that I decided at last I was learning\nreal mountain-driving.  To confess the truth, for delicious titillation\nof one's nerve, I have since driven over no mountain road that was worse,\nor better, rather, than that piece.\n\nAnd then the contrast!  From Sausalito, over excellent, park-like\nboulevards, through the splendid redwoods and homes of Mill Valley,\nacross the blossomed hills of Marin County, along the knoll-studded\npicturesque marshes, past San Rafael resting warmly among her hills, over\nthe divide and up the Petaluma Valley, and on to the grassy feet of\nSonoma Mountain and home.  We covered fifty-five miles that day.  Not so\nbad, eh, for Prince the Rogue, the paint-removing Outlaw, the\nthin-shanked thoroughbred, and the rabbit-jumper?  And they came in cool\nand dry, ready for their mangers and the straw.\n\nOh, we didn't stop.  We considered we were just starting, and that was\nmany weeks ago.  We have kept on going over six counties which are\ncomfortably large, even for California, and we are still going.  We have\ntwisted and tabled, criss-crossed our tracks, made fascinating and\nlengthy dives into the interior valleys in the hearts of Napa and Lake\nCounties, travelled the coast for hundreds of miles on end, and are now\nin Eureka, on Humboldt Bay, which was discovered by accident by the gold-\nseekers, who were trying to find their way to and from the Trinity\ndiggings.  Even here, the white man's history preceded them, for dim\ntradition says that the Russians once anchored here and hunted sea-otter\nbefore the first Yankee trader rounded the Horn, or the first Rocky\nMountain trapper thirsted across the \"Great American Desert\" and trickled\ndown the snowy Sierras to the sun-kissed land.  No; we are not resting\nour horses here on Humboldt Bay.  We are writing this article, gorging on\nabalones and mussels, digging clams, and catching record-breaking sea-\ntrout and rock-cod in the intervals in which we are not sailing, motor-\nboating, and swimming in the most temperately equable climate we have\never experienced.\n\nThese comfortably large counties!  They are veritable empires.  Take\nHumboldt, for instance.  It is three times as large as Rhode Island, one\nand a half times as large as Delaware, almost as large as Connecticut,\nand half as large as Massachusetts.  The pioneer has done his work in\nthis north of the bay region, the foundations are laid, and all is ready\nfor the inevitable inrush of population and adequate development of\nresources which so far have been no more than skimmed, and casually and\ncarelessly skimmed at that.  This region of the six counties alone will\nsome day support a population of millions.  In the meanwhile, O you home-\nseekers, you wealth-seekers, and, above all, you climate-seekers, now is\nthe time to get in on the ground floor.\n\nRobert Ingersoll once said that the genial climate of California would in\na fairly brief time evolve a race resembling the Mexicans, and that in\ntwo or three generations the Californians would be seen of a Sunday\nmorning on their way to a cockfight with a rooster under each arm.  Never\nwas made a rasher generalisation, based on so absolute an ignorance of\nfacts.  It is to laugh.  Here is a climate that breeds vigour, with just\nsufficient geniality to prevent the expenditure of most of that vigour in\nfighting the elements.  Here is a climate where a man can work three\nhundred and sixty-five days in the year without the slightest hint of\nenervation, and where for three hundred and sixty-five nights he must\nperforce sleep under blankets.  What more can one say?  I consider myself\nsomewhat of climate expert, having adventured among most of the climates\nof five out of the six zones.  I have not yet been in the Antarctic, but\nwhatever climate obtains there will not deter me from drawing the\nconclusion that nowhere is there a climate to compare with that of this\nregion.  Maybe I am as wrong as Ingersoll was.  Nevertheless I take my\nmedicine by continuing to live in this climate.  Also, it is the only\nmedicine I ever take.\n\nBut to return to the horses.  There is some improvement.  Milda has\nactually learned to walk.  Maid has proved her thoroughbredness by never\ntiring on the longest days, and, while being the strongest and highest\nspirited of all, by never causing any trouble save for an occasional kick\nat the Outlaw.  And the Outlaw rarely gallops, no longer butts, only\nperiodically kicks, comes in to the pole and does her work without\nattempting to vivisect Maid's medulla oblongata, and--marvel of\nmarvels--is really and truly getting lazy.  But Prince remains the same\nincorrigible, loving and lovable rogue he has always been.\n\nAnd the country we've been over!  The drives through Napa and Lake\nCounties!  One, from Sonoma Valley, via Santa Rosa, we could not refrain\nfrom taking several ways, and on all the ways we found the roads\nexcellent for machines as well as horses.  One route, and a more\ndelightful one for an automobile cannot be found, is out from Santa Rosa,\npast old Altruria and Mark West Springs, then to the right and across to\nCalistoga in Napa Valley.  By keeping to the left, the drive holds on up\nthe Russian River Valley, through the miles of the noted Asti Vineyards\nto Cloverdale, and then by way of Pieta, Witter, and Highland Springs to\nLakeport.  Still another way we took, was down Sonoma Valley, skirting\nSan Pablo Bay, and up the lovely Napa Valley.  From Napa were side\nexcursions through Pope and Berryessa Valleys, on to AEtna Springs, and\nstill on, into Lake County, crossing the famous Langtry Ranch.\n\nContinuing up the Napa Valley, walled on either hand by great rock\npalisades and redwood forests and carpeted with endless vineyards, and\ncrossing the many stone bridges for which the County is noted and which\nare a joy to the beauty-loving eyes as well as to the four-horse tyro\ndriver, past Calistoga with its old mud-baths and chicken-soup springs,\nwith St. Helena and its giant saddle ever towering before us, we climbed\nthe mountains on a good grade and dropped down past the quicksilver mines\nto the canyon of the Geysers.  After a stop over night and an exploration\nof the miniature-grand volcanic scene, we pulled on across the canyon and\ntook the grade where the cicadas simmered audibly in the noon sunshine\namong the hillside manzanitas.  Then, higher, came the big cattle-dotted\nupland pastures, and the rocky summit.  And here on the summit, abruptly,\nwe caught a vision, or what seemed a mirage.  The ocean we had left long\ndays before, yet far down and away shimmered a blue sea, framed on the\nfarther shore by rugged mountains, on the near shore by fat and rolling\nfarm lands.  Clear Lake was before us, and like proper sailors we\nreturned to our sea, going for a sail, a fish, and a swim ere the day was\ndone and turning into tired Lakeport blankets in the early evening.  Well\nhas Lake County been called the Walled-in County.  But the railroad is\ncoming.  They say the approach we made to Clear Lake is similar to the\napproach to Lake Lucerne.  Be that as it may, the scenery, with its\ndistant snow-capped peaks, can well be called Alpine.\n\nAnd what can be more exquisite than the drive out from Clear Lake to\nUkiah by way of the Blue Lakes chain!--every turn bringing into view a\npicture of breathless beauty; every glance backward revealing some\nperfect composition in line and colour, the intense blue of the water\nmargined with splendid oaks, green fields, and swaths of orange poppies.\nBut those side glances and backward glances were provocative of trouble.\nCharmian and I disagreed as to which way the connecting stream of water\nran.  We still disagree, for at the hotel, where we submitted the affair\nto arbitration, the hotel manager and the clerk likewise disagreed.  I\nassume, now, that we never will know which way that stream runs.  Charmian\nsuggests \"both ways.\"  I refuse such a compromise.  No stream of water I\never saw could accomplish that feat at one and the same time.  The\ngreatest concession I can make is that sometimes it may run one way and\nsometimes the other, and that in the meantime we should both consult an\noculist.\n\nMore valley from Ukiah to Willits, and then we turned westward through\nthe virgin Sherwood Forest of magnificent redwood, stopping at Alpine for\nthe night and continuing on through Mendocino County to Fort Bragg and\n\"salt water.\"  We also came to Fort Bragg up the coast from Fort Ross,\nkeeping our coast journey intact from the Golden Gate.  The coast weather\nwas cool and delightful, the coast driving superb.  Especially in the\nFort Ross section did we find the roads thrilling, while all the way\nalong we followed the sea.  At every stream, the road skirted dizzy cliff-\nedges, dived down into lush growths of forest and ferns and climbed out\nalong the cliff-edges again.  The way was lined with flowers--wild lilac,\nwild roses, poppies, and lupins.  Such lupins!--giant clumps of them, of\nevery lupin-shade and--colour.  And it was along the Mendocino roads that\nCharmian caused many delays by insisting on getting out to pick the wild\nblackberries, strawberries, and thimble-berries which grew so profusely.\nAnd ever we caught peeps, far down, of steam schooners loading lumber in\nthe rocky coves; ever we skirted the cliffs, day after day, crossing\nstretches of rolling farm lands and passing through thriving villages and\nsaw-mill towns.  Memorable was our launch-trip from Mendocino City up Big\nRiver, where the steering gears of the launches work the reverse of\nanywhere else in the world; where we saw a stream of logs, of six to\ntwelve and fifteen feet in diameter, which filled the river bed for miles\nto the obliteration of any sign of water; and where we were told of a\nwhite or albino redwood tree.  We did not see this last, so cannot vouch\nfor it.\n\nAll the streams were filled with trout, and more than once we saw the\nside-hill salmon on the slopes.  No, side-hill salmon is not a\nperipatetic fish; it is a deer out of season.  But the trout!  At Gualala\nCharmian caught her first one.  Once before in my life I had caught two\n. . . on angleworms.  On occasion I had tried fly and spinner and never got\na strike, and I had come to believe that all this talk of fly-fishing was\njust so much nature-faking.  But on the Gualala River I caught trout--a\nlot of them--on fly and spinners; and I was beginning to feel quite an\nexpert, until Nakata, fishing on bottom with a pellet of bread for bait,\ncaught the biggest trout of all.  I now affirm there is nothing in\nscience nor in art.  Nevertheless, since that day poles and baskets have\nbeen added to our baggage, we tackle every stream we come to, and we no\nlonger are able to remember the grand total of our catch.\n\nAt Usal, many hilly and picturesque miles north of Fort Bragg, we turned\nagain into the interior of Mendocino, crossing the ranges and coming out\nin Humboldt County on the south fork of Eel River at Garberville.\nThroughout the trip, from Marin County north, we had been warned of \"bad\nroads ahead.\"  Yet we never found those bad roads.  We seemed always to\nbe just ahead of them or behind them.  The farther we came the better the\nroads seemed, though this was probably due to the fact that we were\nlearning more and more what four horses and a light rig could do on a\nroad.  And thus do I save my face with all the counties.  I refuse to\nmake invidious road comparisons.  I can add that while, save in rare\ninstances on steep pitches, I have trotted my horses down all the grades,\nI have never had one horse fall down nor have I had to send the rig to a\nblacksmith shop for repairs.\n\nAlso, I am learning to throw leather.  If any tyro thinks it is easy to\ntake a short-handled, long-lashed whip, and throw the end of that lash\njust where he wants it, let him put on automobile goggles and try it.  On\nreconsideration, I would suggest the substitution of a wire fencing-mask\nfor the goggles.  For days I looked at that whip.  It fascinated me, and\nthe fascination was composed mostly of fear.  At my first attempt,\nCharmian and Nakata became afflicted with the same sort of fascination,\nand for a long time afterward, whenever they saw me reach for the whip,\nthey closed their eyes and shielded their heads with their arms.\n\nHere's the problem.  Instead of pulling honestly, Prince is lagging back\nand manoeuvring for a bite at Milda's neck.  I have four reins in my\nhands.  I must put these four reins into my left hand, properly gather\nthe whip handle and the bight of the lash in my right hand, and throw\nthat lash past Maid without striking her and into Prince.  If the lash\nstrikes Maid, her thoroughbredness will go up in the air, and I'll have a\ncase of horse hysteria on my hands for the next half hour.  But follow.\nThe whole problem is not yet stated.  Suppose that I miss Maid and reach\nthe intended target.  The instant the lash cracks, the four horses jump,\nPrince most of all, and his jump, with spread wicked teeth, is for the\nback of Milda's neck.  She jumps to escape--which is her second jump, for\nthe first one came when the lash exploded.  The Outlaw reaches for Maid's\nneck, and Maid, who has already jumped and tried to bolt, tries to bolt\nharder.  And all this infinitesimal fraction of time I am trying to hold\nthe four animals with my left hand, while my whip-lash, writhing through\nthe air, is coming back to me.  Three simultaneous things I must do: keep\nhold of the four reins with my left hand; slam on the brake with my foot;\nand on the rebound catch that flying lash in the hollow of my right arm\nand get the bight of it safely into my right hand.  Then I must get two\nof the four lines back into my right hand and keep the horses from\nrunning away or going over the grade.  Try it some time.  You will find\nlife anything but wearisome.  Why, the first time I hit the mark and made\nthe lash go off like a revolver shot, I was so astounded and delighted\nthat I was paralysed.  I forgot to do any of the multitudinous other\nthings, tangled the whip lash in Maid's harness, and was forced to call\nupon Charmian for assistance.  And now, confession.  I carry a few\npebbles handy.  They're great for reaching Prince in a tight place.  But\njust the same I'm learning that whip every day, and before I get home I\nhope to discard the pebbles.  And as long as I rely on pebbles, I cannot\ntruthfully speak of myself as \"tooling a four-in-hand.\"\n\nFrom Garberville, where we ate eel to repletion and got acquainted with\nthe aborigines, we drove down the Eel River Valley for two days through\nthe most unthinkably glorious body of redwood timber to be seen anywhere\nin California.  From Dyerville on to Eureka, we caught glimpses of\nrailroad construction and of great concrete bridges in the course of\nbuilding, which advertised that at least Humboldt County was going to be\nlinked to the rest of the world.\n\nWe still consider our trip is just begun.  As soon as this is mailed from\nEureka, it's heigh ho! for the horses and pull on.  We shall continue up\nthe coast, turn in for Hoopa Reservation and the gold mines, and shoot\ndown the Trinity and Klamath rivers in Indian canoes to Requa.  After\nthat, we shall go on through Del Norte County and into Oregon.  The trip\nso far has justified us in taking the attitude that we won't go home\nuntil the winter rains drive us in.  And, finally, I am going to try the\nexperiment of putting the Outlaw in the lead and relegating Prince to his\nold position in the near wheel.  I won't need any pebbles then.\n\n\n\n\nNOTHING THAT EVER CAME TO ANYTHING\n\n\nIt was at Quito, the mountain capital of Ecuador, that the following\npassage at correspondence took place.  Having occasion to buy a pair of\nshoes in a shop six feet by eight in size and with walls three feet\nthick, I noticed a mangy leopard skin on the floor.  I had no Spanish.\nThe shop-keeper had no English.  But I was an adept at sign language.  I\nwanted to know where I should go to buy leopard skins.  On my scribble-\npad I drew the interesting streets of a city.  Then I drew a small shop,\nwhich, after much effort, I persuaded the proprietor into recognising as\nhis shop.  Next, I indicated in my drawing that on the many streets there\nwere many shops.  And, finally, I made myself into a living interrogation\nmark, pointing all the while from the mangy leopard skin to the many\nshops I had sketched.\n\nBut the proprietor failed to follow me.  So did his assistant.  The\nstreet came in to help--that is, as many as could crowd into the six-by-\neight shop; while those that could not force their way in held an\noverflow meeting on the sidewalk.  The proprietor and the rest took turns\nat talking to me in rapid-fire Spanish, and, from the expressions on\ntheir faces, all concluded that I was remarkably stupid.  Again I went\nthrough my programme, pointing on the sketch from the one shop to the\nmany shops, pointing out that in this particular shop was one leopard\nskin, and then questing interrogatively with my pencil among all the\nshops.  All regarded me in blank silence, until I saw comprehension\nsuddenly dawn on the face of a small boy.\n\n\"Tigres montanya!\" he cried.\n\nThis appealed to me as mountain tigers, namely, leopards; and in token\nthat he understood, the boy made signs for me to follow him, which I\nobeyed.  He led me for a quarter of a mile, and paused before the doorway\nof a large building where soldiers slouched on sentry duty and in and out\nof which went other soldiers.  Motioning for me to remain, he ran inside.\n\nFifteen minutes later he was out again, without leopard skins, but full\nof information.  By means of my card, of my hotel card, of my watch, and\nof the boy's fingers, I learned the following: that at six o'clock that\nevening he would arrive at my hotel with ten leopard skins for my\ninspection.  Further, I learned that the skins were the property of one\nCaptain Ernesto Becucci.  Also, I learned that the boy's name was Eliceo.\n\nThe boy was prompt.  At six o'clock he was at my room.  In his hand was a\nsmall roll addressed to me.  On opening it I found it to be manuscript\npiano music, the _Hora Tranquila Valse_, or \"Tranquil Hour Waltz,\" by\nErnesto Becucci.  I came for leopard skins, thought I, and the owner\nsends me sheet music instead.  But the boy assured me that he would have\nthe skins at the hotel at nine next morning, and I entrusted to him the\nfollowing letter of acknowledgment:\n\n   \"DEAR CAPTAIN BECUCCI:\n\n   \"A thousand thanks for your kind presentation of _Hora Tranquila\n   Valse_.  Mrs. London will play it for me this evening.\n\n   \"Sincerely yours,\n\n   \"Jack London.\"\n\nNext morning Eliceo was back, but without the skins.  Instead, he gave me\na letter, written in Spanish, of which the following is a free\ntranslation:\n\n   \"To my dearest and always appreciated friend, I submit myself--\n\n   \"DEAR SIR:\n\n   \"I sent you last night an offering by the bearer of this note, and you\n   returned me a letter which I translated.\n\n   \"Be it known to you, sir, that I am giving this waltz away in the best\n   society, and therefore to your honoured self.  Therefore it is\n   beholden to you to recognise the attention, I mean by a tangible\n   return, as this composition was made by myself.  You will therefore\n   send by your humble servant, the bearer, any offering, however minute,\n   that you may be prompted to make.  Send it under cover of an envelope.\n   The bearer may be trusted.\n\n   \"I did not indulge in the pleasure of visiting your honourable self\n   this morning, as I find my body not to be enjoying the normal exercise\n   of its functions.\n\n   \"As regards the skins from the mountain, you shall be waited on by a\n   small boy at seven o'clock at night with ten skins from which you may\n   select those which most satisfy your aspirations.\n\n   \"In the hope that you will look upon this in the same light as myself,\n   I beg to be allowed to remain,\n\n   \"Your most faithful servant,\n\n   \"CAPTAIN ERNESTO BECUCCI.\"\n\nWell, thought I, this Captain Ernesto Becucci has shown himself to be\nsuch an undependable person, that, while I don't mind rewarding him for\nhis composition, I fear me if I do I never shall lay eyes on those\nleopard skins.  So to Eliceo I gave this letter for the Captain:\n\n   \"MY DEAR CAPTAIN BECUCCI:\n\n   \"Have the boy bring the skins at seven o'clock this evening, when I\n   shall be glad to look at them.  This evening when the boy brings the\n   skins, I shall be pleased to give him, in an envelope, for you, a\n   tangible return for your musical composition.\n\n   \"Please put the price on each skin, and also let me know for what sum\n   all the skins will sell together.\n\n   \"Sincerely yours,\n\n   \"JACK LONDON.\"\n\nNow, thought I, I have him.  No skins, no tangible return; and evidently\nhe is set on receiving that tangible return.\n\nAt seven o'clock Eliceo was back, but without leopard skins.  He handed\nme this letter:\n\n   \"SENOR LONDON:\n\n   \"I wish to instil in you the belief that I lost to-day, at half past\n   three in the afternoon, the key to my cubicle.  While distributing\n   rations to the soldiers I dropped it.  I see in this loss the act of\n   God.\n\n   \"I received a letter from your honourable self, delivered by the one\n   who bears you this poor response of mine.  To-morrow I will burst open\n   the door to permit me to keep my word with you.  I feel myself\n   eternally shamed not to be able to dominate the evils that afflict\n   colonial mankind.  Please send me the trifle that you offered me.  Send\n   me this proof of your appreciation by the bearer, who is to be\n   trusted.  Also give to him a small sum of money for himself, and earn\n   the undying gratitude of\n\n   \"Your most faithful servant,\n\n   \"CAPTAIN ERNESTO BECUCCI.\"\n\nAlso, inclosed in the foregoing letter was the following original poem, a\npropos neither of leopard skins nor tangible returns, so far as I can\nmake out:\n\n   EFFUSION\n\n   Thou canst not weep;\n   Nor ask I for a year\n   To rid me of my woes\n   Or make my life more dear.\n\n   The mystic chains that bound\n   Thy all-fond heart to mine,\n   Alas! asundered are\n   For now and for all time.\n\n   In vain you strove to hide,\n   From vulgar gaze of man,\n   The burning glance of love\n   That none but Love can scan.\n\n   Go on thy starlit way\n   And leave me to my fate;\n   Our souls must needs unite--\n   But, God! 'twill be too late.\n\nTo all and sundry of which I replied:\n\n   \"MY DEAR CAPTAIN BECUCCI:\n\n   \"I regret exceedingly to hear that by act of God, at half past three\n   this afternoon, you lost the key to your cubicle.  Please have the boy\n   bring the skins at seven o'clock to-morrow morning, at which time,\n   when he brings the skins, I shall be glad to make you that tangible\n   return for your 'Tranquil Hour Waltz.'\n\n   \"Sincerely yours,\n\n   \"JACK LONDON.\"\n\nAt seven o'clock came no skins, but the following:\n\n   \"SIR:\n\n   \"After offering you my most sincere respects, I beg to continue by\n   telling you that no one, up to the time of writing, has treated me\n   with such lack of attention.  It was a present to _gentlemen_ who were\n   to retain the piece of music, and who have all, without exception,\n   made me a present of five dollars.  It is beyond my humble capacity to\n   believe that you, after having offered to send me money in an\n   envelope, should fail to do so.\n\n   \"Send me, I pray of you, the money to remunerate the small boy for his\n   repeated visits to you.  Please be discreet and send it in an envelope\n   by the bearer.\n\n   \"Last night I came to the hotel with the boy.  You were dining.  I\n   waited more than an hour for you and then went to the theatre.  Give\n   the boy some small amount, and send me a like offering of larger\n   proportions.\n\n   \"Awaiting incessantly a slight attention on your part,\n\n   \"CAPTAIN ERNESTO BECUCCI.\"\n\nAnd here, like one of George Moore's realistic studies, ends this\nintercourse with Captain Ernesto Becucci.  Nothing happened.  Nothing\never came to anything.  He got no tangible return, and I got no leopard\nskins.  The tangible return he might have got, I presented to Eliceo, who\npromptly invested it in a pair of trousers and a ticket to the\nbull-fight.\n\n(NOTE TO EDITOR.--This is a faithful narration of what actually happened\nin Quito, Ecuador.)\n\n\n\n\nTHAT DEAD MEN RISE UP NEVER\n\n\nThe month in which my seventeenth birthday arrived I signed on before the\nmast on the _Sophie Sutherland_, a three-topmast schooner bound on a\nseven-months' seal-hunting cruise to the coast of Japan.  We sailed from\nSan Francisco, and immediately I found confronting me a problem of no\ninconsiderable proportions.  There were twelve men of us in the\nforecastle, ten of whom were hardened, tarry-thumbed sailors.  Not alone\nwas I a youth and on my first voyage, but I had for shipmates men who had\ncome through the hard school of the merchant service of Europe.  As boys,\nthey had had to perform their ship's duty, and, in addition, by\nimmemorial sea custom, they had had to be the slaves of the ordinary and\nable-bodied seamen.  When they became ordinary seamen they were still the\nslaves of the able-bodied.  Thus, in the forecastle, with the watch\nbelow, an able seaman, lying in his bunk, will order an ordinary seaman\nto fetch him his shoes or bring him a drink of water.  Now the ordinary\nseaman may be lying in _his_ bunk.  He is just as tired as the able\nseaman.  Yet he must get out of his bunk and fetch and carry.  If he\nrefuses, he will be beaten.  If, perchance, he is so strong that he can\nwhip the able seaman, then all the able seamen, or as many as may be\nnecessary, pitch upon the luckless devil and administer the beating.\n\nMy problem now becomes apparent.  These hard-bit Scandinavian sailors had\ncome through a hard school.  As boys they had served their mates, and as\nable seamen they looked to be served by other boys.  I was a boy--withal\nwith a man's body.  I had never been to sea before--withal I was a good\nsailor and knew my business.  It was either a case of holding my own with\nthem or of going under.  I had signed on as an equal, and an equal I must\nmaintain myself, or else endure seven months of hell at their hands.  And\nit was this very equality they resented.  By what right was I an equal?  I\nhad not earned that high privilege.  I had not endured the miseries they\nhad endured as maltreated boys or bullied ordinaries.  Worse than that, I\nwas a land-lubber making his first voyage.  And yet, by the injustice of\nfate, on the ship's articles I was their equal.\n\nMy method was deliberate, and simple, and drastic.  In the first place, I\nresolved to do my work, no matter how hard or dangerous it might be, so\nwell that no man would be called upon to do it for me.  Further, I put\nginger in my muscles.  I never malingered when pulling on a rope, for I\nknew the eagle eyes of my forecastle mates were squinting for just such\nevidences of my inferiority.  I made it a point to be among the first of\nthe watch going on deck, among the last going below, never leaving a\nsheet or tackle for some one else to coil over a pin.  I was always eager\nfor the run aloft for the shifting of topsail sheets and tacks, or for\nthe setting or taking in of topsails; and in these matters I did more\nthan my share.\n\nFurthermore, I was on a hair-trigger of resentment myself.  I knew better\nthan to accept any abuse or the slightest patronizing.  At the first hint\nof such, I went off--I exploded.  I might be beaten in the subsequent\nfight, but I left the impression that I was a wild-cat and that I would\njust as willingly fight again.  My intention was to demonstrate that I\nwould tolerate no imposition.  I proved that the man who imposed on me\nmust have a fight on his hands.  And doing my work well, the innate\njustice of the men, assisted by their wholesome dislike for a clawing and\nrending wild-cat ruction, soon led them to give over their hectoring.\nAfter a bit of strife, my attitude was accepted, and it was my pride that\nI was taken in as an equal in spirit as well as in fact.  From then on,\neverything was beautiful, and the voyage promised to be a happy one.\n\nBut there was one other man in the forecastle.  Counting the\nScandinavians as ten, and myself as the eleventh, this man was the\ntwelfth and last.  We never knew his name, contenting ourselves with\ncalling him the \"Bricklayer.\"  He was from Missouri--at least he so\ninformed us in the one meagre confidence he was guilty of in the early\ndays of the voyage.  Also, at that time, we learned several other things.\nHe was a bricklayer by trade.  He had never even seen salt water until\nthe week before he joined us, at which time he had arrived in San\nFrancisco and looked upon San Francisco Bay.  Why he, of all men, at\nforty years of age, should have felt the prod to go to sea, was beyond\nall of us; for it was our unanimous conviction that no man less fitted\nfor the sea had ever embarked on it.  But to sea he had come.  After a\nweek's stay in a sailors' boarding-house, he had been shoved aboard of us\nas an able seaman.\n\nAll hands had to do his work for him.  Not only did he know nothing, but\nhe proved himself unable to learn anything.  Try as they would, they\ncould never teach him to steer.  To him the compass must have been a\nprofound and awful whirligig.  He never mastered its cardinal points,\nmuch less the checking and steadying of the ship on her course.  He never\ndid come to know whether ropes should be coiled from left to right or\nfrom right to left.  It was mentally impossible for him to learn the easy\nmuscular trick of throwing his weight on a rope in pulling and hauling.\nThe simplest knots and turns were beyond his comprehension, while he was\nmortally afraid of going aloft.  Bullied by captain and mate, he was one\nday forced aloft.  He managed to get underneath the crosstrees, and there\nhe froze to the ratlines.  Two sailors had to go after him to help him\ndown.\n\nAll of which was bad enough had there been no worse.  But he was vicious,\nmalignant, dirty, and without common decency.  He was a tall, powerful\nman, and he fought with everybody.  And there was no fairness in his\nfighting.  His first fight on board, the first day out, was with me, when\nhe, desiring to cut a plug of chewing tobacco, took my personal table-\nknife for the purpose, and whereupon, I, on a hair-trigger, promptly\nexploded.  After that he fought with nearly every member of the crew.\nWhen his clothing became too filthy to be bearable by the rest of us, we\nput it to soak and stood over him while he washed it.  In short, the\nBricklayer was one of those horrible and monstrous things that one must\nsee in order to be convinced that they exist.\n\nI will only say that he was a beast, and that we treated him like a\nbeast.  It is only by looking back through the years that I realise how\nheartless we were to him.  He was without sin.  He could not, by the very\nnature of things, have been anything else than he was.  He had not made\nhimself, and for his making he was not responsible.  Yet we treated him\nas a free agent and held him personally responsible for all that he was\nand that he should not have been.  As a result, our treatment of him was\nas terrible as he was himself terrible.  Finally we gave him the silent\ntreatment, and for weeks before he died we neither spoke to him nor did\nhe speak to us.  And for weeks he moved among us, or lay in his bunk in\nour crowded house, grinning at us his hatred and malignancy.  He was a\ndying man, and he knew it, and we knew it.  And furthermore, he knew that\nwe wanted him to die.  He cumbered our life with his presence, and ours\nwas a rough life that made rough men of us.  And so he died, in a small\nspace crowded by twelve men and as much alone as if he had died on some\ndesolate mountain peak.  No kindly word, no last word, was passed\nbetween.  He died as he had lived, a beast, and he died hating us and\nhated by us.\n\nAnd now I come to the most startling moment of my life.  No sooner was he\ndead than he was flung overboard.  He died in a night of wind, drawing\nhis last breath as the men tumbled into their oilskins to the cry of \"All\nhands!\"  And he was flung overboard, several hours later, on a day of\nwind.  Not even a canvas wrapping graced his mortal remains; nor was he\ndeemed worthy of bars of iron at his feet.  We sewed him up in the\nblankets in which he died and laid him on a hatch-cover for'ard of the\nmain-hatch on the port side.  A gunnysack, half full of galley coal, was\nfastened to his feet.\n\nIt was bitter cold.  The weather-side of every rope, spar, and stay was\ncoated with ice, while all the rigging was a harp, singing and shouting\nunder the fierce hand of the wind.  The schooner, hove to, lurched and\nfloundered through the sea, rolling her scuppers under and perpetually\nflooding the deck with icy salt water.  We of the forecastle stood in sea-\nboots and oilskins.  Our hands were mittened, but our heads were bared in\nthe presence of the death we did not respect.  Our ears stung and numbed\nand whitened, and we yearned for the body to be gone.  But the\ninterminable reading of the burial service went on.  The captain had\nmistaken his place, and while he read on without purpose we froze our\nears and resented this final hardship thrust upon us by the helpless\ncadaver.  As from the beginning, so to the end, everything had gone wrong\nwith the Bricklayer.  Finally, the captain's son, irritated beyond\nmeasure, jerked the book from the palsied fingers of the old man and\nfound the place.  Again the quavering voice of the captain arose.  Then\ncame the cue: \"And the body shall be cast into the sea.\"  We elevated one\nend of the hatch-cover, and the Bricklayer plunged outboard and was gone.\n\nBack into the forecastle we cleaned house, washing out the dead man's\nbunk and removing every vestige of him.  By sea law and sea custom, we\nshould have gathered his effects together and turned them over to the\ncaptain, who, later, would have held an auction in which we should have\nbid for the various articles.  But no man wanted them, so we tossed them\nup on deck and overboard in the wake of the departed body--the last ill-\ntreatment we could devise to wreak upon the one we had hated so.  Oh, it\nwas raw, believe me; but the life we lived was raw, and we were as raw as\nthe life.\n\nThe Bricklayer's bunk was better than mine.  Less sea water leaked down\nthrough the deck into it, and the light was better for lying in bed and\nreading.  Partly for this reason I proceeded to move into his bunk.  My\nother reason was pride.  I saw the sailors were superstitious, and by\nthis act I determined to show that I was braver than they.  I would cap\nmy proved equality by a deed that would compel their recognition of my\nsuperiority.  Oh, the arrogance of youth!  But let that pass.  The\nsailors were appalled by my intention.  One and all, they warned me that\nin the history of the sea no man had taken a dead man's bunk and lived to\nthe end of the voyage.  They instanced case after case in their personal\nexperience.  I was obdurate.  Then they begged and pleaded with me, and\nmy pride was tickled in that they showed they really liked me and were\nconcerned about me.  This but served to confirm me in my madness.  I\nmoved in, and, lying in the dead man's bunk, all afternoon and evening\nlistened to dire prophecies of my future.  Also were told stories of\nawful deaths and gruesome ghosts that secretly shivered the hearts of all\nof us.  Saturated with this, yet scoffing at it, I rolled over at the end\nof the second dog-watch and went to sleep.\n\nAt ten minutes to twelve I was called, and at twelve I was dressed and on\ndeck, relieving the man who had called me.  On the sealing grounds, when\nhove to, a watch of only a single man is kept through the night, each man\nholding the deck for an hour.  It was a dark night, though not a black\none.  The gale was breaking up, and the clouds were thinning.  There\nshould have been a moon, and, though invisible, in some way a dim,\nsuffused radiance came from it.  I paced back and forth across the deck\namidships.  My mind was filled with the event of the day and with the\nhorrible tales my shipmates had told, and yet I dare to say, here and\nnow, that I was not afraid.  I was a healthy animal, and furthermore,\nintellectually, I agreed with Swinburne that dead men rise up never.  The\nBricklayer was dead, and that was the end of it.  He would rise up\nnever--at least, never on the deck of the _Sophie Sutherland_.  Even then\nhe was in the ocean depths miles to windward of our leeward drift, and\nthe likelihood was that he was already portioned out in the maws of many\nsharks.  Still, my mind pondered on the tales of the ghosts of dead men I\nhad heard, and I speculated on the spirit world.  My conclusion was that\nif the spirits of the dead still roamed the world they carried the\ngoodness or the malignancy of the earth-life with them.  Therefore,\ngranting the hypothesis (which I didn't grant at all), the ghost of the\nBricklayer was bound to be as hateful and malignant as he in life had\nbeen.  But there wasn't any Bricklayer's ghost--that I insisted upon.\n\nA few minutes, thinking thus, I paced up and down.  Then, glancing\ncasually for'ard, along the port side, I leaped like a startled deer and\nin a blind madness of terror rushed aft along the poop, heading for the\ncabin.  Gone was all my arrogance of youth and my intellectual calm.  I\nhad seen a ghost.  There, in the dim light, where we had flung the dead\nman overboard, I had seen a faint and wavering form.  Six-feet in length\nit was, slender, and of substance so attenuated that I had distinctly\nseen through it the tracery of the fore-rigging.\n\nAs for me, I was as panic-stricken as a frightened horse.  I, as I, had\nceased to exist.  Through me were vibrating the fibre-instincts of ten\nthousand generations of superstitious forebears who had been afraid of\nthe dark and the things of the dark.  I was not I.  I was, in truth,\nthose ten thousand forebears.  I was the race, the whole human race, in\nits superstitious infancy.  Not until part way down the\ncabin-companionway did my identity return to me.  I checked my flight and\nclung to the steep ladder, suffocating, trembling, and dizzy.  Never,\nbefore nor since, have I had such a shock.  I clung to the ladder and\nconsidered.  I could not doubt my senses.  That I had seen something\nthere was no discussion.  But what was it?  Either a ghost or a joke.\nThere could be nothing else.  If a ghost, the question was: would it\nappear again?  If it did not, and I aroused the ship's officers, I would\nmake myself the laughing stock of all on board.  And by the same token,\nif it were a joke, my position would be still more ridiculous.  If I were\nto retain my hard-won place of equality, it would never do to arouse any\none until I ascertained the nature of the thing.\n\nI am a brave man.  I dare to say so; for in fear and trembling I crept up\nthe companion-way and went back to the spot from which I had first seen\nthe thing.  It had vanished.  My bravery was qualified, however.  Though\nI could see nothing, I was afraid to go for'ard to the spot where I had\nseen the thing.  I resumed my pacing up and down, and though I cast many\nan anxious glance toward the dread spot, nothing manifested itself.  As\nmy equanimity returned to me, I concluded that the whole affair had been\na trick of the imagination and that I had got what I deserved for\nallowing my mind to dwell on such matters.\n\nOnce more my glances for'ard were casual, and not anxious; and then,\nsuddenly, I was a madman, rushing wildly aft.  I had seen the thing\nagain, the long, wavering attenuated substance through which could be\nseen the fore-rigging.  This time I had reached only the break of the\npoop when I checked myself.  Again I reasoned over the situation, and it\nwas pride that counselled strongest.  I could not afford to make myself a\nlaughing-stock.  This thing, whatever it was, I must face alone.  I must\nwork it out myself.  I looked back to the spot where we had tilted the\nBricklayer.  It was vacant.  Nothing moved.  And for a third time I\nresumed my amidships pacing.\n\nIn the absence of the thing my fear died away and my intellectual poise\nreturned.  Of course it was not a ghost.  Dead men did not rise up.  It\nwas a joke, a cruel joke.  My mates of the forecastle, by some unknown\nmeans, were frightening me.  Twice already must they have seen me run\naft.  My cheeks burned with shame.  In fancy I could hear the smothered\nchuckling and laughter even then going on in the forecastle.  I began to\ngrow angry.  Jokes were all very well, but this was carrying the thing\ntoo far.  I was the youngest on board, only a youth, and they had no\nright to play tricks on me of the order that I well knew in the past had\nmade raving maniacs of men and women.  I grew angrier and angrier, and\nresolved to show them that I was made of sterner stuff and at the same\ntime to wreak my resentment upon them.  If the thing appeared again, I\nmade my mind up that I would go up to it--furthermore, that I would go up\nto it knife in hand.  When within striking distance, I would strike.  If\na man, he would get the knife-thrust he deserved.  If a ghost, well, it\nwouldn't hurt the ghost any, while I would have learned that dead men did\nrise up.\n\nNow I was very angry, and I was quite sure the thing was a trick; but\nwhen the thing appeared a third time, in the same spot, long, attenuated,\nand wavering, fear surged up in me and drove most of my anger away.  But\nI did not run.  Nor did I take my eyes from the thing.  Both times\nbefore, it had vanished while I was running away, so I had not seen the\nmanner of its going.  I drew my sheath-knife from my belt and began my\nadvance.  Step by step, nearer and nearer, the effort to control myself\ngrew more severe.  The struggle was between my will, my identity, my very\nself, on the one hand, and on the other, the ten thousand ancestors who\nwere twisted into the fibres of me and whose ghostly voices were\nwhispering of the dark and the fear of the dark that had been theirs in\nthe time when the world was dark and full of terror.\n\nI advanced more slowly, and still the thing wavered and flitted with\nstrange eerie lurches.  And then, right before my eyes, it vanished.  I\nsaw it vanish.  Neither to the right nor left did it go, nor backward.\nRight there, while I gazed upon it, it faded away, ceased to be.  I\ndidn't die, but I swear, from what I experienced in those few succeeding\nmoments, that I know full well that men can die of fright.  I stood\nthere, knife in hand, swaying automatically to the roll of the ship,\nparalysed with fear.  Had the Bricklayer suddenly seized my throat with\ncorporeal fingers and proceeded to throttle me, it would have been no\nmore than I expected.  Dead men did rise up, and that would be the most\nlikely thing the malignant Bricklayer would do.\n\nBut he didn't seize my throat.  Nothing happened.  And, since nature\nabhors a status, I could not remain there in the one place forever\nparalysed.  I turned and started aft.  I did not run.  What was the use?\nWhat chance had I against the malevolent world of ghosts?  Flight, with\nme, was the swiftness of my legs.  The pursuit, with a ghost, was the\nswiftness of thought.  And there were ghosts.  I had seen one.\n\nAnd so, stumbling slowly aft, I discovered the explanation of the\nseeming.  I saw the mizzen topmast lurching across a faint radiance of\ncloud behind which was the moon.  The idea leaped in my brain.  I\nextended the line between the cloudy radiance and the mizzen-topmast and\nfound that it must strike somewhere near the fore-rigging on the port\nside.  Even as I did this, the radiance vanished.  The driving clouds of\nthe breaking gale were alternately thickening and thinning before the\nface of the moon, but never exposing the face of the moon.  And when the\nclouds were at their thinnest, it was a very dim radiance that the moon\nwas able to make.  I watched and waited.  The next time the clouds\nthinned I looked for'ard, and there was the shadow of the topmast, long\nand attenuated, wavering and lurching on the deck and against the\nrigging.\n\nThis was my first ghost.  Once again have I seen a ghost.  It proved to\nbe a Newfoundland dog, and I don't know which of us was the more\nfrightened, for I hit that Newfoundland a full right-arm swing to the\njaw.  Regarding the Bricklayer's ghost, I will say that I never mentioned\nit to a soul on board.  Also, I will say that in all my life I never went\nthrough more torment and mental suffering than on that lonely night-watch\non the _Sophie Sutherland_.\n\n(TO THE EDITOR.--This is not a fiction.  It is a true page out of my\nlife.)\n\n\n\n\nA CLASSIC OF THE SEA\n\n\n   Introduction to \"_Two Years before the Mast_.\"\n\nOnce in a hundred years is a book written that lives not alone for its\nown century but which becomes a document for the future centuries.  Such\na book is Dana's.  When Marryat's and Cooper's sea novels are gone to\ndust, stimulating and joyful as they have been to generations of men,\nstill will remain \"Two Years Before the Mast.\"\n\nParadoxical as it may seem, Dana's book is the classic of the sea, not\nbecause there was anything extraordinary about Dana, but for the precise\ncontrary reason that he was just an ordinary, normal man, clear-seeing,\nhard-headed, controlled, fitted with adequate education to go about the\nwork.  He brought a trained mind to put down with untroubled vision what\nhe saw of a certain phase of work-a-day life.  There was nothing\nbrilliant nor fly-away about him.  He was not a genius.  His heart never\nrode his head.  He was neither overlorded by sentiment nor hag-ridden by\nimagination.  Otherwise he might have been guilty of the beautiful\nexaggerations in Melville's \"Typee\" or the imaginative orgies in the\nlatter's \"Moby Dick.\"  It was Dana's cool poise that saved him from being\nspread-eagled and flogged when two of his mates were so treated; it was\nhis lack of abandon that prevented him from taking up permanently with\nthe sea, that prevented him from seeing more than one poetical spot, and\nmore than one romantic spot on all the coast of Old California.  Yet\nthese apparent defects were his strength.  They enabled him magnificently\nto write, and for all time, the picture of the sea-life of his time.\n\nWritten close to the middle of the last century, such has been the\nrevolution worked in man's method of trafficking with the sea, that the\nlife and conditions described in Dana's book have passed utterly away.\nGone are the crack clippers, the driving captains, the hard-bitten but\nefficient foremast hands.  Remain only crawling cargo tanks, dirty\ntramps, greyhound liners, and a sombre, sordid type of sailing ship.  The\nonly records broken to-day by sailing vessels are those for slowness.\nThey are no longer built for speed, nor are they manned before the mast\nby as sturdy a sailor stock, nor aft the mast are they officered by sail-\ncarrying captains and driving mates.\n\nSpeed is left to the liners, who run the silk, and tea, and spices.\nAdmiralty courts, boards of trade, and underwriters frown upon driving\nand sail-carrying.  No more are the free-and-easy, dare-devil days, when\nfortunes were made in fast runs and lucky ventures, not alone for owners,\nbut for captains as well.  Nothing is ventured now.  The risks of swift\npassages cannot be abided.  Freights are calculated to the last least\nfraction of per cent.  The captains do no speculating, no bargain-making\nfor the owners.  The latter attend to all this, and by wire and cable\nrake the ports of the seven seas in quest of cargoes, and through their\nagents make all business arrangements.\n\nIt has been learned that small crews only, and large carriers only, can\nreturn a decent interest on the investment.  The inevitable corollary is\nthat speed and spirit are at a discount.  There is no discussion of the\nfact that in the sailing merchant marine the seamen, as a class, have\nsadly deteriorated.  Men no longer sell farms to go to sea.  But the time\nof which Dana writes was the heyday of fortune-making and adventure on\nthe sea--with the full connotation of hardship and peril always\nattendant.\n\nIt was Dana's fortune, for the sake of the picture, that the _Pilgrim_\nwas an average ship, with an average crew and officers, and managed with\naverage discipline.  Even the _hazing_ that took place after the\nCalifornia coast was reached, was of the average sort.  The _Pilgrim_\nsavoured not in any way of a hell-ship.  The captain, while not the\nsweetest-natured man in the world, was only an average down-east driver,\nneither brilliant nor slovenly in his seamanship, neither cruel nor\nsentimental in the treatment of his men.  While, on the one hand, there\nwere no extra liberty days, no delicacies added to the meagre forecastle\nfare, nor grog or hot coffee on double watches, on the other hand the\ncrew were not chronically crippled by the continual play of\nknuckle-dusters and belaying pins.  Once, and once only, were men flogged\nor ironed--a very fair average for the year 1834, for at that time\nflogging on board merchant vessels was already well on the decline.\n\nThe difference between the sea-life then and now can be no better\nepitomised than in Dana's description of the dress of the sailor of his\nday:\n\n\"The trousers tight around the hips, and thence hanging long and loose\naround the feet, a superabundance of checked shirt, a low-crowned, well-\nvarnished black hat, worn on the back of the head, with half a fathom of\nblack ribbon hanging over the left eye, and a peculiar tie to the black\nsilk neckerchief.\"\n\nThough Dana sailed from Boston only three-quarters of a century ago, much\nthat is at present obsolete was then in full sway.  For instance, the old\nword _larboard_ was still in use.  He was a member of the _larboard_\nwatch.  The vessel was on the _larboard_ tack.  It was only the other\nday, because of its similarity in sound to starboard, that _larboard_ was\nchanged to _port_.  Try to imagine \"All larboard bowlines on deck!\" being\nshouted down into the forecastle of a present day ship.  Yet that was the\ncall used on the _Pilgrim_ to fetch Dana and the rest of his watch on\ndeck.\n\nThe chronometer, which is merely the least imperfect time-piece man has\ndevised, makes possible the surest and easiest method by far of\nascertaining longitude.  Yet the _Pilgrim_ sailed in a day when the\nchronometer was just coming into general use.  So little was it depended\nupon that the _Pilgrim_ carried only one, and that one, going wrong at\nthe outset, was never used again.  A navigator of the present would be\naghast if asked to voyage for two years, from Boston, around the Horn to\nCalifornia, and back again, without a chronometer.  In those days such a\nproceeding was a matter of course, for those were the days when dead\nreckoning was indeed something to reckon on, when running down the\nlatitude was a common way of finding a place, and when lunar observations\nwere direly necessary.  It may be fairly asserted that very few merchant\nofficers of to-day ever make a lunar observation, and that a large\npercentage are unable to do it.\n\n\"Sept. 22nd., upon coming on deck at seven bells in the morning we found\nthe other watch aloft throwing water upon the sails, and looking astern\nwe saw a small, clipper-built brig with a black hull heading directly\nafter us.  We went to work immediately, and put all the canvas upon the\nbrig which we could get upon her, rigging out oars for studding-sail\nyards; and contined wetting down the sails by buckets of water whipped up\nto the mast-head . . . She was armed, and full of men, and showed no\ncolours.\"\n\nThe foregoing sounds like a paragraph from \"Midshipman Easy\" or the\n\"Water Witch,\" rather than a paragraph from the soberest, faithfullest,\nand most literal chronicle of the sea ever written.  And yet the chase by\na pirate occurred, on board the brig _Pilgrim_, on September 22nd,\n1834--something like only two generations ago.\n\nDana was the thorough-going type of man, not overbalanced and erratic,\nwithout quirk or quibble of temperament.  He was efficient, but not\nbrilliant.  His was a general all-round efficiency.  He was efficient at\nthe law; he was efficient at college; he was efficient as a sailor; he\nwas efficient in the matter of pride, when that pride was no more than\nthe pride of a forecastle hand, at twelve dollars a month, in his\nseaman's task well done, in the smart sailing of his captain, in the\nclearness and trimness of his ship.\n\nThere is no sailor whose cockles of the heart will not warm to Dana's\ndescription of the first time he sent down a royal yard.  Once or twice\nhe had seen it done.  He got an old hand in the crew to coach him.  And\nthen, the first anchorage at Monterey, being pretty _thick_ with the\nsecond mate, he got him to ask the mate to be sent up the first time the\nroyal yards were struck.  \"Fortunately,\" as Dana describes it, \"I got\nthrough without any word from the officer; and heard the 'well done' of\nthe mate, when the yard reached the deck, with as much satisfaction as I\never felt at Cambridge on seeing a 'bene' at the foot of a Latin\nexercise.\"\n\n\"This was the first time I had taken a weather ear-ring, and I felt not a\nlittle proud to sit astride of the weather yard-arm, past the ear-ring,\nand sing out 'Haul out to leeward!'\"  He had been over a year at sea\nbefore he essayed this able seaman's task, but he did it, and he did it\nwith pride.  And with pride, he went down a four-hundred foot cliff, on a\npair of top-gallant studding-sail halyards bent together, to dislodge\nseveral dollars worth of stranded bullock hides, though all the acclaim\nhe got from his mates was: \"What a d-d fool you were to risk your life\nfor half a dozen hides!\"\n\nIn brief, it was just this efficiency in pride, as well as work, that\nenabled Dana to set down, not merely the photograph detail of life before\nthe mast and hide-droghing on the coast of California, but of the\nuntarnished simple psychology and ethics of the forecastle hands who\ndroghed the hides, stood at the wheel, made and took in sail, tarred down\nthe rigging, holystoned the decks, turned in all-standing, grumbled as\nthey cut about the kid, criticised the seamanship of their officers, and\nestimated the duration of their exile from the cubic space of the hide-\nhouse.\n\nJACK LONDON\nGlen Ellen, California,\nAugust 13, 1911.\n\n\n\nA WICKED WOMAN\n(Curtain Raiser)\nBY JACK LONDON\n\n\nScene--California.\n\nTime--Afternoon of a summer day.\n\nCHARACTERS\n\nLORETTA, A sweet, young thing.  Frightfully innocent.  About nineteen\nyears old.  Slender, delicate, a fragile flower.  Ingenuous.\n\nNED BASHFORD, A jaded young man of the world, who has philosophised his\nexperiences and who is without faith in the veracity or purity of women.\n\nBILLY MARSH, A boy from a country town who is just about as innocent as\nLoretta.  Awkward.  Positive.  Raw and callow youth.\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY, A society woman, good-hearted, and a match-maker.\n\nJACK HEMINGWAY, Her husband.\n\nMAID.\n\n\nA WICKED WOMAN\n\n\n[Curtain rises on a conventional living room of a country house in\nCalifornia.  It is the Hemingway house at Santa Clara.  The room is\nremarkable for magnificent stone fireplace at rear centre.  On either\nside of fireplace are generous, diamond-paned windows.  Wide, curtained\ndoorways to right and left.  To left, front, table, with vase of flowers\nand chairs.  To right, front, grand piano.]\n\n[Curtain discovers LORETTA seated at piano, not playing, her back to it,\nfacing NED BASHFORD, who is standing.]\n\nLORETTA.  [Petulantly, fanning herself with sheet of music.]  No, I won't\ngo fishing.  It's too warm.  Besides, the fish won't bite so early in the\nafternoon.\n\nNED.  Oh, come on.  It's not warm at all.  And anyway, we won't really\nfish.  I want to tell you something.\n\nLORETTA.  [Still petulantly.]  You are always wanting to tell me\nsomething.\n\nNED.  Yes, but only in fun.  This is different.  This is serious.  Our\n. . . my happiness depends upon it.\n\nLORETTA.  [Speaking eagerly, no longer petulant, looking, serious and\ndelighted, divining a proposal.]  Then don't wait.  Tell me right here.\n\nNED.  [Almost threateningly.]  Shall I?\n\nLORETTA.  [Challenging.]  Yes.\n\n[He looks around apprehensively as though fearing interruption, clears\nhis throat, takes resolution, also takes LORETTA's hand.]\n\n[LORETTA is startled, timid, yet willing to hear, naively unable to\nconceal her love for him.]\n\nNED.  [Speaking softly.]  Loretta  . . . I, . . . ever since I met you I\nhave--\n\n[JACK HEMINGWAY appears in the doorway to the left, just entering.]\n\n[NED suddenly drops LORETTA's hand.  He shows exasperation.]\n\n[LORETTA shows disappointment at interruption.]\n\nNED.  Confound it\n\nLORETTA.  [Shocked.]  Ned!  Why will you swear so?\n\nNED.  [Testily.]  That isn't swearing.\n\nLORETTA.  What is it, pray?\n\nNED.  Displeasuring.\n\nJACK HEMINGWAY.  [Who is crossing over to right.]  Squabbling again?\n\nLORETTA.  [Indignantly and with dignity.]  No, we're not.\n\nNED.  [Gruffly.]  What do you want now?\n\nJACK HEMINGWAY.  [Enthusiastically.]  Come on fishing.\n\nNED.  [Snappily.]  No.  It's too warm.\n\nJACK HEMINGWAY.  [Resignedly, going out right.]  You needn't take a\nfellow's head off.\n\nLORETTA.  I thought you wanted to go fishing.\n\nNED.  Not with Jack.\n\nLORETTA.  [Accusingly, fanning herself vigorously.]  And you told me it\nwasn't warm at all.\n\nNED.  [Speaking softly.]  That isn't what I wanted to tell you, Loretta.\n[He takes her hand.]  Dear Loretta--\n\n[Enter abruptly ALICE HEMINGWAY from right.]\n\n[LORETTA sharply jerks her hand away, and looks put out.]\n\n[NED tries not to look awkward.]\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  Goodness!  I thought you'd both gone fishing!\n\nLORETTA.  [Sweetly.]  Is there anything you want, Alice?\n\nNED.  [Trying to be courteous.]  Anything I can do?\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  [Speaking quickly, and trying to withdraw.]  No, no.  I\nonly came to see if the mail had arrived.\n\nLORETTA AND NED\n\n[Speaking together.]  No, it hasn't arrived.\n\nLORETTA.  [Suddenly moving toward door to right.]  I am going to see.\n\n[NED looks at her reproachfully.]\n\n[LORETTA looks back tantalisingly from doorway and disappears.]\n\n[NED flings himself disgustedly into Morris chair.]\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  [Moving over and standing in front of him.  Speaks\naccusingly.]  What have you been saying to her?\n\nNED.  [Disgruntled.]  Nothing.\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  [Threateningly.]  Now listen to me, Ned.\n\nNED.  [Earnestly.]  On my word, Alice, I've been saying nothing to her.\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  [With sudden change of front.]  Then you ought to have\nbeen saying something to her.\n\nNED.  [Irritably.  Getting chair for her, seating her, and seating\nhimself again.]  Look here, Alice, I know your game.  You invited me down\nhere to make a fool of me.\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  Nothing of the sort, sir.  I asked you down to meet a\nsweet and unsullied girl--the sweetest, most innocent and ingenuous girl\nin the world.\n\nNED.  [Dryly.]  That's what you said in your letter.\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  And that's why you came.  Jack had been trying for a\nyear to get you to come.  He did not know what kind of a letter to write.\n\nNED.  If you think I came because of a line in a letter about a girl I'd\nnever seen--\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  [Mockingly.]  The poor, jaded, world-worn man, who is\nno longer interested in women . . . and girls!  The poor, tired pessimist\nwho has lost all faith in the goodness of women--\n\nNED.  For which you are responsible.\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  [Incredulously.]  I?\n\nNED.  You are responsible.  Why did you throw me over and marry Jack?\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  Do you want to know?\n\nNED.  Yes.\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  [Judiciously.]  First, because I did not love you.\nSecond, because you did not love me.  [She smiles at his protesting hand\nand at the protesting expression on his face.]  And third, because there\nwere just about twenty-seven other women at that time that you loved, or\nthought you loved.  That is why I married Jack.  And that is why you lost\nfaith in the goodness of women.  You have only yourself to blame.\n\nNED.  [Admiringly.]  You talk so convincingly.  I almost believe you as I\nlisten to you.  And yet I know all the time that you are like all the\nrest of your sex--faithless, unveracious, and . . .\n\n[He glares at her, but does not proceed.]\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  Go on.  I'm not afraid.\n\nNED.  [With finality.]  And immoral.\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  Oh!  You wretch!\n\nNED.  [Gloatingly.]  That's right.  Get angry.  You may break the\nfurniture if you wish.  I don't mind.\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  [With sudden change of front, softly.]  And how about\nLoretta?\n\n[NED gasps and remains silent.]\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  The depths of duplicity that must lurk under that sweet\nand innocent exterior . . . according to your philosophy!\n\nNED.  [Earnestly.]  Loretta is an exception, I confess.  She is all that\nyou said in your letter.  She is a little fairy, an angel.  I never\ndreamed of anything like her.  It is remarkable to find such a woman in\nthis age.\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  [Encouragingly.]  She is so naive.\n\nNED.  [Taking the bait.]  Yes, isn't she?  Her face and her tongue betray\nall her secrets.\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  [Nodding her head.]  Yes, I have noticed it.\n\nNED.  [Delightedly.]  Have you?\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  She cannot conceal anything.  Do you know that she\nloves you?\n\nNED.  [Falling into the trap, eagerly.]  Do you think so?\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  [Laughing and rising.]  And to think I once permitted\nyou to make love to me for three weeks!\n\n[NED rises.]\n\n[MAID enters from left with letters, which she brings to ALICE\nHEMINGWAY.]\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  [Running over letters.]  None for you, Ned.  [Selecting\ntwo letters for herself.]  Tradesmen.  [Handing remainder of letters to\nMAID.]  And three for Loretta.  [Speaking to MAID.]  Put them on the\ntable, Josie.\n\n[MAID puts letters on table to left front, and makes exit to left.]\n\nNED.  [With shade of jealousy.]  Loretta seems to have quite a\ncorrespondence.\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  [With a sigh.]  Yes, as I used to when I was a girl.\n\nNED.  But hers are family letters.\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  Yes, I did not notice any from Billy.\n\nNED.  [Faintly.]  Billy?\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  [Nodding.]  Of course she has told you about him?\n\nNED.  [Gasping.]  She has had lovers . . . already?\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  And why not?  She is nineteen.\n\nNED.  [Haltingly.]  This . . . er . . . this Billy . . . ?\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  [Laughing and putting her hand reassuringly on his\narm.]  Now don't be alarmed, poor, tired philosopher.  She doesn't love\nBilly at all.\n\n[LORETTA enters from right.]\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  [To LORETTA, nodding toward table.]  Three letters for\nyou.\n\nLORETTA.  [Delightedly.]  Oh!  Thank you.\n\n[LORETTA trips swiftly across to table, looks at letters, sits down,\nopens letters, and begins to read.]\n\nNED.  [Suspiciously.]  But Billy?\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  I am afraid he loves her very hard.  That is why she is\nhere.  They had to send her away.  Billy was making life miserable for\nher.  They were little children together--playmates.  And Billy has been,\nwell, importunate.  And Loretta, poor child, does not know anything about\nmarriage.  That is all.\n\nNED.  [Reassured.]  Oh, I see.\n\n[ALICE HEMINGWAY starts slowly toward right exit, continuing conversation\nand accompanied by NED.]\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  [Calling to LORETTA.]  Are you going fishing, Loretta?\n\n[LORETTA looks up from letter and shakes head.]\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  [To NED.]  Then you're not, I suppose?\n\nNED.  No, it's too warm.\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  Then I know the place for you.\n\nNED.  Where?\n\nALICE HEMINGWAY.  Right here.  [Looks significantly in direction of\nLORETTA.]  Now is your opportunity to say what you ought to say.\n\n[ALICE HEMINGWAY laughs teasingly and goes out to right.]\n\n[NED hesitates, starts to follow her, looks at LORETTA, and stops.  He\ntwists his moustache and continues to look at her meditatively.]\n\n[LORETTA is unaware of his presence and goes on reading.  Finishes\nletter, folds it, replaces in envelope, looks up, and discovers NED.]\n\nLORETTA.  [Startled.]  Oh!  I thought you were gone.\n\nNED.  [Walking across to her.]  I thought I'd stay and finish our\nconversation.\n\nLORETTA.  [Willingly, settling herself to listen.]  Yes, you were going\nto . . . [Drops eyes and ceases talking.]\n\nNED.  [Taking her hand, tenderly.]  I little dreamed when I came down\nhere visiting that I was to meet my destiny in--[Abruptly releases\nLORETTA's hand.]\n\n[MAID enters from left with tray.]\n\n[LORETTA glances into tray and discovers that it is empty.  She looks\ninquiringly at MAID.]\n\nMAID.  A gentleman to see you.  He hasn't any card.  He said for me to\ntell you that it was Billy.\n\nLORETTA.  [Starting, looking with dismay and appeal to NED.]  Oh! . . .\nNed!\n\nNED  [Gracefully and courteously, rising to his feet and preparing to\ngo.]  If you'll excuse me now, I'll wait till afterward to tell you what\nI wanted.\n\nLORETTA.  [In dismay.]  What shall I do?\n\nNED.  [Pausing.]  Don't you want to see him?  [LORETTA shakes her head.]\nThen don't.\n\nLORETTA.  [Slowly.]  I can't do that.  We are old friends.  We . . . were\nchildren together.  [To the MAID.]  Send him in.  [To NED, who has\nstarted to go out toward right.]  Don't go, Ned.\n\n[MAID makes exit to left.]\n\nNED.  [Hesitating a moment.]  I'll come back.\n\n[NED makes exit to right.]\n\n[LORETTA, left alone on stage, shows perturbation and dismay.]\n\n[BILLY enters from left.  Stands in doorway a moment.  His shoes are\ndusty.  He looks overheated.  His eyes and face brighten at sight of\nLORETTA.]\n\nBILLY.  [Stepping forward, ardently.]  Loretta!\n\nLORETTA.  [Not exactly enthusiastic in her reception, going slowly to\nmeet him.]  You never said you were coming.\n\n[BILLY shows that he expects to kiss her, but she merely shakes his\nhand.]\n\nBILLY.  [Looking down at his very dusty shoes.]  I walked from the\nstation.\n\nLORETTA.  If you had let me know, the carriage would have been sent for\nyou.\n\nBILLY.  [With expression of shrewdness.]  If I had let you know, you\nwouldn't have let me come.\n\n[BILLY looks around stage cautiously, then tries to kiss her.]\n\nLORETTA.  [Refusing to be kissed. ]  Won't you sit down?\n\nBILLY.  [Coaxingly.]  Go on, just one.  [LORETTA shakes head and holds\nhim off.]  Why not?  We're engaged.\n\nLORETTA.  [With decision. ]  We're not.  You know we're not.  You know I\nbroke it off the day before I came away.  And . . . and . . . you'd\nbetter sit down.\n\n[BILLY sits down on edge of chair.  LORETTA seats herself by table.\nBilly, without rising, jerks his chair forward till they are facing each\nother, his knees touching hers.  He yearns toward her.  She moves back\nher chair slightly.]\n\nBILLY.  [With supreme confidence.]  That's what I came to see you for--to\nget engaged over again.\n\n[BILLY hudges chair forward and tries to take her hand.]\n\n[LORETTA hudges her chair back.]\n\nBILLY.  [Drawing out large silver watch and looking at it.]  Now look\nhere, Loretta, I haven't any time to lose.  I've got to leave for that\ntrain in ten minutes.  And I want you to set the day.\n\nLORETTA.  But we're not engaged, Billy.  So there can't be any setting of\nthe day.\n\nBILLY.  [With confidence.]  But we're going to be.  [Suddenly breaking\nout.]  Oh, Loretta, if you only knew how I've suffered.  That first night\nI didn't sleep a wink.  I haven't slept much ever since.  [Hudges chair\nforward.]  I walk the floor all night.  [Solemnly.]  Loretta, I don't eat\nenough to keep a canary bird alive.  Loretta . . . [Hudges chair\nforward.]\n\nLORETTA.  [Hudging her chair back maternally.]  Billy, what you need is a\ntonic.  Have you seen Doctor Haskins?\n\nBILLY.  [Looking at watch and evincing signs of haste.]  Loretta, when a\ngirl kisses a man, it means she is going to marry him.\n\nLORETTA.  I know it, Billy.  But . . . [She glances toward letters on\ntable.]  Captain Kitt doesn't want me to marry you.  He says . . . [She\ntakes letter and begins to open it.]\n\nBILLY.  Never mind what Captain Kitt says.  He wants you to stay and be\ncompany for your sister.  He doesn't want you to marry me because he\nknows she wants to keep you.\n\nLORETTA.  Daisy doesn't want to keep me.  She wants nothing but my own\nhappiness.  She says--[She takes second letter from table and begins to\nopen it.]\n\nBILLY.  Never mind what Daisy says--\n\nLORETTA.  [Taking third letter from table and beginning to open it.]  And\nMartha says--\n\nBILLY.  [Angrily.]  Darn Martha and the whole boiling of them!\n\nLORETTA.  [Reprovingly.]  Oh, Billy!\n\nBILLY.  [Defensively.]  Darn isn't swearing, and you know it isn't.\n\n[There is an awkward pause.  Billy has lost the thread of the\nconversation and has vacant expression.]\n\nBILLY.  [Suddenly recollecting.]  Never mind Captain Kitt, and Daisy, and\nMartha, and what they want.  The question is, what do you want?\n\nLORETTA.  [Appealingly.]  Oh, Billy, I'm so unhappy.\n\nBILLY.  [Ignoring the appeal and pressing home the point.]  The thing is,\ndo you want to marry me?  [He looks at his watch.]  Just answer that.\n\nLORETTA.  Aren't you afraid you'll miss that train?\n\nBILLY.  Darn the train!\n\nLORETTA.  [Reprovingly.]  Oh, Billy!\n\nBILLY.  [Most irascibly.]  Darn isn't swearing.  [Plaintively.]  That's\nthe way you always put me off.  I didn't come all the way here for a\ntrain.  I came for you.  Now just answer me one thing.  Do you want to\nmarry me?\n\nLORETTA.  [Firmly.]  No, I don't want to marry you.\n\nBILLY.  [With assurance.]  But you've got to, just the same.\n\nLORETTA.  [With defiance.]  Got to?\n\nBILLY.  [With unshaken assurance.]  That's what I said--got to.  And I'll\nsee that you do.\n\nLORETTA.  [Blazing with anger.]  I am no longer a child.  You can't bully\nme, Billy Marsh!\n\nBILLY.  [Coolly.]  I'm not trying to bully you.  I'm trying to save your\nreputation.\n\nLORETTA.  [Faintly.]  Reputation?\n\nBILLY.  [Nodding.]  Yes, reputation.  [He pauses for a moment, then\nspeaks very solemnly.]  Loretta, when a woman kisses a man, she's got to\nmarry him.\n\nLORETTA.  [Appalled, faintly.]  Got to?\n\nBILLY.  [Dogmatically.]  It is the custom.\n\nLORETTA.  [Brokenly.]  And when . . . a . . . a woman kisses a man and\ndoesn't . . . marry him . . . ?\n\nBILLY.  Then there is a scandal.  That's where all the scandals you see\nin the papers come from.\n\n[BILLY looks at watch.]\n\n[LORETTA in silent despair.]\n\nLORETTA.  [In abasement.]  You are a good man, Billy.  [Billy shows that\nhe believes it.]  And I am a very wicked woman.\n\nBILLY.  No, you're not, Loretta.  You just didn't know.\n\nLORETTA.  [With a gleam of hope.]  But you kissed me first.\n\nBILLY.  It doesn't matter.  You let me kiss you.\n\nLORETTA.  [Hope dying down.]  But not at first.\n\nBILLY.  But you did afterward and that's what counts.  You let me you in\nthe grape-arbour.  You let me--\n\nLORETTA.  [With anguish]  Don't!  Don't!\n\nBILLY.  [Relentlessly.]--kiss you when you were playing the piano.  You\nlet me kiss you that day of the picnic.  And I can't remember all the\ntimes you let me kiss you good night.\n\nLORETTA.  [Beginning to weep.]  Not more than five.\n\nBILLY.  [With conviction.]  Eight at least.\n\nLORETTA.  [Reproachfully, still weeping.]  You told me it was all right.\n\nBILLY.  [Emphatically.]  So it was all right--until you said you wouldn't\nmarry me after all.  Then it was a scandal--only no one knows it yet.  If\nyou marry me no one ever will know it.  [Looks at watch.]  I've got to\ngo.  [Stands up.]  Where's my hat?\n\nLORETTA.  [Sobbing.]  This is awful.\n\nBILLY.  [Approvingly.]  You bet it's awful.  And there's only one way\nout.  [Looks anxiously about for hat.]  What do you say?\n\nLORETTA.  [Brokenly.]  I must think.  I'll write to you.  [Faintly.]  The\ntrain?  Your hat's in the hall.\n\nBILLY.  [Looks at watch, hastily tries to kiss her, succeeds only in\nshaking hand, starts across stage toward left.]  All right.  You write to\nme.  Write to-morrow.  [Stops for a moment in doorway and speaks very\nsolemnly.]  Remember, Loretta, there must be no scandal.\n\n[Billy goes out.]\n\n[LORETTA sits in chair quietly weeping.  Slowly dries eyes, rises from\nchair, and stands, undecided as to what she will do next.]\n\n[NED enters from right, peeping.  Discovers that LORETTA is alone, and\ncomes quietly across stage to her.  When NED comes up to her she begins\nweeping again and tries to turn her head away.  NED catches both her\nhands in his and compels her to look at him.  She weeps harder.]\n\nNED.  [Putting one arm protectingly around her shoulder and drawing her\ntoward him.]  There, there, little one, don't cry.\n\nLORETTA.  [Turning her face to his shoulder like a tired child, sobbing.]\nOh, Ned, if you only knew how wicked I am.\n\nNED.  [Smiling indulgently.]  What is the matter, little one?  Has your\ndearly beloved sister failed to write to you?  [LORETTA shakes head.]  Has\nHemingway been bullying you?  [LORETTA shakes head.]  Then it must have\nbeen that caller of yours?  [Long pause, during which LORETTA's weeping\ngrows more violent.]  Tell me what's the matter, and we'll see what I can\ndo.  [He lightly kisses her hair--so lightly that she does not know.]\n\nLORETTA.  [Sobbing.]  I can't.  You will despise me.  Oh, Ned, I am so\nashamed.\n\nNED.  [Laughing incredulously.]  Let us forget all about it.  I want to\ntell you something that may make me very happy.  My fondest hope is that\nit will make you happy, too.  Loretta, I love you--\n\nLORETTA.  [Uttering a sharp cry of delight, then moaning.]  Too late!\n\nNED.  [Surprised.]  Too late?\n\nLORETTA.  [Still moaning.]  Oh, why did I?  [NED somewhat stiffens.]  I\nwas so young.  I did not know the world then.\n\nNED.  What is it all about anyway?\n\nLORETTA.  Oh, I . . . he . . . Billy . . . I am a wicked woman, Ned.  I\nknow you will never speak to me again.\n\nNED.  This . . . er . . . this Billy--what has he been doing?\n\nLORETTA.  I . . . he . . . I didn't know.  I was so young.  I could not\nhelp it.  Oh, I shall go mad, I shall go mad!\n\n[NED's encircling arm goes limp.  He gently disengages her and deposits\nher in big chair.]\n\n[LORETTA buries her face and sobs afresh.]\n\nNED.  [Twisting moustache fiercely, regarding her dubiously, hesitating a\nmoment, then drawing up chair and sitting down.]  I . . . I do not\nunderstand.\n\nLORETTA.  [Wailing.]  I am so unhappy!\n\nNED.  [Inquisitorially.]  Why unhappy?\n\nLORETTA.  Because . . . he . . . he wants to marry me.\n\nNED.  [His face brightening instantly, leaning forward and laying a hand\nsoothingly on hers.]  That should not make any girl unhappy.  Because you\ndon't love him is no reason--[Abruptly breaking off.]  Of course you\ndon't love him?  [LORETTA shakes her head and shoulders vigorously.]\nWhat?\n\nLORETTA.  [Explosively.]  No, I don't love Billy!  I don't want to love\nBilly!\n\nNED.  [With confidence.]  Because you don't love him is no reason that\nyou should be unhappy just because he has proposed to you.\n\nLORETTA.  [Sobbing.]  That's the trouble.  I wish I did love him.  Oh, I\nwish I were dead.\n\nNED.  [Growing complacent.]  Now my dear child, you are worrying yourself\nover trifles.  [His second hand joins the first in holding her hands.]\nWomen do it every day.  Because you have changed your mind, or did not\nknow you mind, because you have--to use an unnecessarily harsh\nword--jilted a man--\n\nLORETTA.  [Interrupting, raising her head and looking at him.]  Jilted?\nOh Ned, if that were a all!\n\nNED.  [Hollow voice.]  All!\n\n[NED's hands slowly retreat from hers.  He opens his mouth as though to\nspeak further, then changes his mind and remains silent.]\n\nLORETTA.  [Protestingly.]  But I don't want to marry him!\n\nNED.  Then I shouldn't.\n\nLORETTA.  But I ought to marry him.\n\nNED.  _Ought_ to marry him?  [LORETTA nods.]  That is a strong word.\n\nLORETTA.  [Nodding.]  I know it is.  [Her lips are trembling, but she\nstrives for control and manages to speak more calmly.]  I am a wicked\nwoman.  A terrible wicked woman.  No one knows how wicked I am . . .\nexcept Billy.\n\nNED.  [Starting, looking at her queerly.]  He . . . Billy knows?  [LORETTA\nnods.  He debates with himself a moment.]  Tell me about it.  You must\ntell me all of it.\n\nLORETTA.  [Faintly, as though about to weep again.]  All of it?\n\nNED.  [Firmly.]  Yes, all of it.\n\nLORETTA.  [Haltingly.]  And . . . will . . . you . . . ever . . . forgive\n. . . me?\n\nNED.  [Drawing a long, breath, desperately.]  Yes, I'll forgive you.  Go\nahead.\n\nLORETTA.  There was no one to tell me.  We were with each other so much.\nI did not know anything of the world . . . then.  [Pauses.]\n\nNED.  [Impatiently.]  Go on.\n\nLORETTA.  If I had only known.  [Pauses.]\n\nNED.  [Biting his lip and clenching his hands.]  Yes, yes.  Go on.\n\nLORETTA.  We were together almost every evening.\n\nNED.  [Savagely.]  Billy?\n\nLORETTA.  Yes, of course, Billy.  We were with each other so much . . .\nIf I had only known . . . There was no one to tell me . . . I was so\nyoung . . . [Breaks down crying.]\n\nNED.  [Leaping to his feet, explosively.]  The scoundrel!\n\nLORETTA.  [Lifting her head.]  Billy is not a scoundrel . . . He . . . he\n. . . is a good man.\n\nNED.  [Sarcastically.]  I suppose you'll be telling me next that it was\nall your fault.  [LORETTA nods.]  What!\n\nLORETTA.  [Steadily.]  It was all my fault.  I should never have let him.\nI was to blame.\n\nNED.  [Paces up and down for a minute, stops in front of her, and speaks\nwith resignation.]  All right.  I don't blame you in the least, Loretta.\nAnd you have been very honest.  It is . . . er . . . commendable.  But\nBilly is right, and you are wrong.  You must get married.\n\nLORETTA.  [In dim, far-away voice.]  To Billy?\n\nNED.  Yes, to Billy.  I'll see to it.  Where does he live?  I'll make\nhim.  If he won't I'll . . . I'll shoot him!\n\nLORETTA.  [Crying out with alarm.]  Oh, Ned, you won't do that?\n\nNED.  [Sternly.]  I shall.\n\nLORETTA.  But I don't want to marry Billy.\n\nNED.  [Sternly.]  You must.  And Billy must.  Do you understand?  It is\nthe only thing.\n\nLORETTA.  That's what Billy said.\n\nNED.  [Triumphantly.]  You see, I am right.\n\nLORETTA.  And if . . . if I don't marry him . . . there will be . . .\nscandal?\n\nNED.  [Calmly.]  Yes, there will be scandal.\n\nLORETTA.  That's what Billy said.  Oh, I am so unhappy!\n\n[LORETTA breaks down into violent weeping.]\n\n[NED paces grimly up and down, now and again fiercely twisting his\nmoustache.]\n\nLORETTA.  [Face buried, sobbing and crying all the time.]\n\nI don't want to leave Daisy!  I don't want to leave Daisy!  What shall I\ndo?  What shall I do?  How was I to know?  He didn't tell me.  Nobody\nelse ever kissed me.  [NED stops curiously to listen.  As he listens his\nface brightens.]  I never dreamed a kiss could be so terrible . . . until\n. . . until he told me.  He only told me this morning.\n\nNED.  [Abruptly.]  Is that what you are crying about?\n\nLORETTA.  [Reluctantly.]  N-no.\n\nNED.  [In hopeless voice, the brightness gone out of his face, about to\nbegin pacing again.]  Then what are you crying about?\n\nLORETTA.  Because you said I had to marry Billy.  I don't want to marry\nBilly.  I don't want to leave Daisy.  I don't know what I want.  I wish I\nwere dead.\n\nNED.  [Nerving himself for another effort.]  Now look here, Loretta, be\nsensible.  What is this about kisses?  You haven't told me everything\nafter all.\n\nLORETTA.  I . . . I don't want to tell you everything.\n\nNED.  [Imperatively.]  You must.\n\nLORETTA.  [Surrendering.]  Well, then . . . must I?\n\nNED.  You must.\n\nLORETTA.  [Floundering.]  He . . . I . . . we . . . I let him, and he\nkissed me.\n\nNED.  [Desperately, controlling himself.]  Go on.\n\nLORETTA.  He says eight, but I can't think of more than five times.\n\nNED.  Yes, go on.\n\nLORETTA.  That's all.\n\nNED.  [With vast incredulity.]  All?\n\nLORETTA.  [Puzzled.]  All?\n\nNED.  [Awkwardly.]  I mean . . . er . . . nothing worse?\n\nLORETTA.  [Puzzled.]  Worse?  As though there could be.  Billy said--\n\nNED.  [Interrupting.]  When?\n\nLORETTA.  This afternoon.  Just now.  Billy said that my . . . our . . .\nour . . . our kisses were terrible if we didn't get married.\n\nNED.  What else did he say?\n\nLORETTA.  He said that when a woman permitted a man to kiss her she\nalways married him.  That it was awful if she didn't.  It was the custom,\nhe said; and I say it is a bad, wicked custom, and it has broken my\nheart.  I shall never be happy again.  I know I am terrible, but I can't\nhelp it.  I must have been born wicked.\n\nNED.  [Absent-mindedly bringing out a cigarette and striking a match.]  Do\nyou mind if I smoke?  [Coming to himself again, and flinging away match\nand cigarette.]  I beg your pardon.  I don't want to smoke.  I didn't\nmean that at all.  What I mean is . . . [He bends over LORETTA, catches\nher hands in his, then sits on arm of chair, softly puts one arm around\nher, and is about to kiss her.]\n\nLORETTA.  [With horror, repulsing him.]  No!  No!\n\nNED.  [Surprised.]  What's the matter?\n\nLORETTA.  [Agitatedly.]  Would you make me a wickeder woman than I am?\n\nNED.  A kiss?\n\nLORETTA.  There will be another scandal.  That would make two scandals.\n\nNED.  To kiss the woman I love . . . a scandal?\n\nLORETTA.  Billy loves me, and he said so.\n\nNED.  Billy is a joker . . . or else he is as innocent as you.\n\nLORETTA.  But you said so yourself.\n\nNED.  [Taken aback.]  I?\n\nLORETTA.  Yes, you said it yourself, with your own lips, not ten minutes\nago.  I shall never believe you again.\n\nNED.  [Masterfully putting arm around her and drawing her toward him.]\nAnd I am a joker, too, and a very wicked man.  Nevertheless, you must\ntrust me.  There will be nothing wrong.\n\nLORETTA.  [Preparing to yield.]  And no . . . scandal?\n\nNED.  Scandal fiddlesticks.  Loretta, I want you to be my wife.  [He\nwaits anxiously.]\n\n[JACK HEMINGWAY, in fishing costume, appears in doorway to right and\nlooks on.]\n\nNED.  You might say something.\n\nLORETTA.  I will . . . if . . .\n\n[ALICE HEMINGWAY appears in doorway to left and looks on.]\n\nNED.  [In suspense.]  Yes, go on.\n\nLORETTA.  If I don't have to marry Billy.\n\nNED.  [Almost shouting.]  You can't marry both of us!\n\nLORETTA.  [Sadly, repulsing him with her hands.]  Then, Ned, I cannot\nmarry you.\n\nNED.  [Dumbfounded.]  W-what?\n\nLORETTA.  [Sadly.]  Because I can't marry both of you.\n\nNED.  Bosh and nonsense!\n\nLORETTA.  I'd like to marry you, but . . .\n\nNED.  There is nothing to prevent you.\n\nLORETTA.  [With sad conviction.]  Oh, yes, there is.  You said yourself\nthat I had to marry Billy.  You said you would s-s-shoot him if he\ndidn't.\n\nNED.  [Drawing her toward him.]  Nevertheless . . .\n\nLORETTA.  [Slightly holding him off.]  And it isn't the custom . . . what\n. . . Billy said?\n\nNED.  No, it isn't the custom.  Now, Loretta, will you marry me?\n\nLORETTA.  [Pouting demurely.]  Don't be angry with me, Ned.  [He gathers\nher into his arms and kisses her.  She partially frees herself, gasping.]\nI wish it were the custom, because now I'd have to marry you, Ned,\nwouldn't I?\n\n[NED and LORETTA kiss a second time and profoundly.]\n\n[JACK HEMINGWAY chuckles.]\n\n[NED and LORETTA, startled, but still in each other's arms, look around.\nNED looks sillily at ALICE HEMINGWAY.  LORETTA looks at JACK HEMINGWAY.]\n\nLORETTA.  I don't care.\n\nCURTAIN\n\n\n\n\nTHE BIRTH MARK\nSKETCH BY JACK LONDON written for Robert and Julia Fitzsimmons\n\n\nSCENE--One of the club rooms of the West Bay Athletic Club.  Near centre\nfront is a large table covered with newspapers and magazines.  At left a\npunching-bag apparatus.  At right, against wall, a desk, on which rests a\ndesk-telephone.  Door at rear toward left.  On walls are framed pictures\nof pugilists, conspicuous among which is one of Robert Fitzsimmons.\nAppropriate furnishings, etc., such as foils, clubs, dumb-bells and\ntrophies.\n\n[Enter MAUD SYLVESTER.]\n\n[She is dressed as a man, in evening clothes, preferably a Tuxedo.  In\nher hand is a card, and under her arm a paper-wrapped parcel.  She peeps\nabout curiously and advances to table.  She is timorous and excited,\nelated and at the same time frightened.  Her eyes are dancing with\nexcitement.]\n\nMAUD.  [Pausing by table.]  Not a soul saw me.  I wonder where everybody\nis.  And that big brother of mine said I could not get in.  [She reads\nback of card.]  \"Here is my card, Maudie.  If you can use it, go ahead.\nBut you will never get inside the door.  I consider my bet as good as\nwon.\"  [Looking up, triumphantly.]  You do, do you?  Oh, if you could see\nyour little sister now.  Here she is, inside.  [Pauses, and looks about.]\nSo this is the West Bay Athletic Club.  No women allowed.  Well, here I\nam, if I don't look like one.  [Stretches out one leg and then the other,\nand looks at them.  Leaving card and parcel on table, she struts around\nlike a man, looks at pictures of pugilists on walls, reading aloud their\nnames and making appropriate remarks.  But she stops before the portrait\nof Fitzsimmons and reads aloud.]  \"Robert Fitzsimmons, the greatest\nwarrior of them all.\"  [Clasps hands, and looking up at portrait\nmurmurs.]  Oh, you dear!\n\n[Continues strutting around, imitating what she considers are a man's\nstride and swagger, returns to table and proceeds to unwrap parcel.]\nWell, I'll go out like a girl, if I did come in like a man.  [Drops\nwrapping paper on table and holds up a woman's long automobile cloak and\na motor bonnet.  Is suddenly startled by sound of approaching footsteps\nand glances in a frightened way toward door.]  Mercy!  Here comes\nsomebody now!  [Glances about her in alarm, drops cloak and bonnet on\nfloor close to table, seizes a handful of newspapers, and runs to large\nleather chair to right of table, where she seats herself hurriedly.  One\npaper she holds up before her, hiding her face as she pretends to read.\nUnfortunately the paper is upside down.  The other papers lie on her\nlap.]\n\n[Enter ROBERT FITZSIMMONS.]\n\n[He looks about, advances to table, takes out cigarette case and is about\nto select one, when he notices motor cloak and bonnet on floor.  He lays\ncigarette case on table and picks them up.  They strike him as profoundly\ncurious things to be in a club room.  He looks at MAUD, then sees card on\ntable.  He picks it up and reach it to himself, then looks at her with\ncomprehension.  Hidden by her newspaper, she sees nothing.  He looks at\ncard again and reads and speaks in an aside.]\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  \"Maudie.  John H. Sylvester.\"  That must be Jack\nSylvester's sister Maud.  [FITZSIMMONS shows by his expression that he is\ngoing to play a joke.  Tossing cloak and bonnet under the table he places\ncard in his vest pocket, selects a chair, sits down, and looks at MAUD.\nHe notes paper is upside down, is hugely tickled, and laughs silently.]\nHello!  [Newspaper is agitated by slight tremor.  He speaks more loudly.]\nHello!  [Newspaper shakes badly.  He speaks very loudly.]  Hello!\n\nMAUD.  [Peeping at him over top of paper and speaking hesitatingly.]  H-h-\nhello!\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Gruffly.]  You are a queer one, reading a paper upside\ndown.\n\nMAUD.  [Lowering newspaper and trying to appear at ease.]  It's quite a\ntrick, isn't it?  I often practise it.  I'm real clever at it, you know.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Grunts, then adds.]  Seems to me I have seen you before.\n\nMAUD.  [Glancing quickly from his face to portrait and back again.]  Yes,\nand I know you--You are Robert Fitzsimmons.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  I thought I knew you.\n\nMAUD.  Yes, it was out in San Francisco.  My people still live there.  I'm\njust--ahem--doing New York.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  But I don't quite remember the name.\n\nMAUD.  Jones--Harry Jones.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Hugely delighted, leaping from chair and striding over to\nher.]  Sure.  [Slaps her resoundingly on shoulder.]\n\n[She is nearly crushed by the weight of the blow, and at the same time\nshocked.  She scrambles to her feet.]\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  Glad to see you, Harry.  [He wrings her hand, so that it\nhurts.]  Glad to see you again, Harry.  [He continues wringing her hand\nand pumping her arm.]\n\nMAUD.  [Struggling to withdraw her hand and finally succeeding.  Her\nvoice is rather faint.]  Ye-es, er . . . Bob . . . er . . . glad to see\nyou again.  [She looks ruefully at her bruised fingers and sinks into\nchair.  Then, recollecting her part, she crosses her legs in a mannish\nway.]\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Crossing to desk at right, against which he leans, facing\nher.]  You were a wild young rascal in those San Francisco days.\n[Chuckling.]  Lord, Lord, how it all comes back to me.\n\nMAUD.  [Boastfully.]  I was wild--some.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Grinning.]  I should say!  Remember that night I put you\nto bed?\n\nMAUD.  [Forgetting herself, indignantly.]  Sir!\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  You were . . . er . . . drunk.\n\nMAUD.  I never was!\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  Surely you haven't forgotten that night!  You began with\ndropping champagne bottles out of the club windows on the heads of the\npeople on the sidewalk, and you wound up by assaulting a cabman.  And let\nme tell you I saved you from a good licking right there, and squared it\nwith the police.  Don't you remember?\n\nMAUD.  [Nodding hesitatingly.]  Yes, it is beginning to come back to me.\nI was a bit tight that night.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Exultantly.]  A bit tight!  Why, before I could get you to\nbed you insisted on telling me the story of your life.\n\nMAUD.  Did I?  I don't remember that.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  I should say not.  You were past remembering anything by\nthat time.  You had your arms around my neck--\n\nMAUD.  [Interrupting.]  Oh!\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  And you kept repeating over and over, \"Bob, dear Bob.\"\n\nMAUD.  [Springing to her feet.]  Oh!  I never did!  [Recollecting\nherself.]  Perhaps I must have.  I was a trifle wild in those days, I\nadmit.  But I'm wise now.  I've sowed my wild oats and steadied down.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  I'm glad to hear that, Harry.  You were tearing off a\npretty fast pace in those days.  [Pause, in which MAUD nods.]  Still\npunch the bag?\n\nMAUD.  [In quick alarm, glancing at punching bag.]  No, I've got out of\nthe hang of it.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Reproachfully.]  You haven't forgotten that\nright-and-left, arm, elbow and shoulder movement I taught you?\n\nMAUD.  [With hesitation.]  N-o-o.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Moving toward bag to left.]  Then, come on.\n\nMAUD.  [Rising reluctantly and following.]  I'd rather see you punch the\nbag.  I'd just love to.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  I will, afterward.  You go to it first.\n\nMAUD.  [Eyeing the bag in alarm.]  No; you.  I'm out of practice.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Looking at her sharply.]  How many drinks have you had to-\nnight?\n\nMAUD.  Not a one.  I don't drink--that is--er--only occasionally.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Indicating bag.]  Then go to it.\n\nMAUD.  No; I tell you I am out of practice.  I've forgotten it all.  You\nsee, I made a discovery.\n\n[Pauses.]\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  Yes?\n\nMAUD.  I--I--you remember what a light voice I always had--almost\nsoprano?\n\n[FITZSIMMONS nods.]\n\nMAUD.  Well, I discovered it was a perfect falsetto.\n\n[FITZSIMMONS nods.]\n\nMAUD.  I've been practising it ever since.  Experts, in another room,\nwould swear it was a woman's voice.  So would you, if you turned your\nback and I sang.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Who has been laughing incredulously, now becomes\nsuspicious.]  Look here, kid, I think you are an impostor.  You are not\nHarry Jones at all.\n\nMAUD.  I am, too.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  I don't believe it.  He was heavier than you.\n\nMAUD.  I had the fever last summer and lost a lot of weight.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  You are the Harry Jones that got sousesd and had to be put\nto bed?\n\nMAUD.  Y-e-s.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  There is one thing I remember very distinctly.  Harry Jones\nhad a birth mark on his knee.  [He looks at her legs searchingly.]\n\nMAUD.  [Embarrassed, then resolving to carry it out.]  Yes, right here.\n[She advances right leg and touches it.]\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Triumphantly.]  Wrong.  It was the other knee.\n\nMAUD.  I ought to know.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  You haven't any birth mark at all.\n\nMAUD.  I have, too.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Suddenly springing to her and attempting to seize her\nleg.]  Then we'll prove it.  Let me see.\n\nMAUD.  [In a panic backs away from him and resists his attempts, until\ngrinning in an aside to the audience, he gives over.  She, in an aside to\naudience.]  Fancy his wanting to see my birth mark.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Bullying.]  Then take a go at the bag.  [She shakes her\nhead.]  You're not Harry Jones.\n\nMAUD.  [Approaching punching bag.]  I am, too.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  Then hit it.\n\nMAUD.  [Resolving to attempt it, hits bag several nice blows, and then is\nstruck on the nose by it.]  Oh!\n\n[Recovering herself and rubbing her nose.]  I told you I was out of\npractice.  You punch the bag, Bob.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  I will, if you will show me what you can do with that\nwonderful soprano voice of yours.\n\nMAUD.  I don't dare.  Everybody would think there was a woman in the\nclub.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Shaking his head.]  No, they won't.  They've all gone to\nthe fight.  There's not a soul in the building.\n\nMAUD.  [Alarmed, in a weak voice.]  Not--a--soul--in--the building?\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  Not a soul.  Only you and I.\n\nMAUD.  [Starting hurriedly toward door.]  Then I must go.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  What's your hurry?  Sing.\n\nMAUD.  [Turning back with new resolve.]  Let me see you punch the\nbag,--er--Bob.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  You sing first.\n\nMAUD.  No; you punch first.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  I don't believe you are Harry--\n\nMAUD.  [Hastily.]  All right, I'll sing.  You sit down over there and\nturn your back.\n\n[FITZSIMMONS obeys.]\n\n[MAUD walks over to the table toward right.  She is about to sing, when\nshe notices FITZSIMMONS' cigarette case, picks it up, and in an aside\nreads his name on it and speaks.]\n\nMAUD.  \"Robert Fitzsimmons.\"  That will prove to my brother that I have\nbeen here.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  Hurry up.\n\n[MAUD hastily puts cigarette case in her pocket and begins to sing.]\n\nSONG\n\n[During the song FITZSIMMONS turns his head slowly and looks at her with\ngrowing admiration.]\n\nMAUD.  How did you like it?\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Gruffly.]  Rotten.  Anybody could tell it was a boy's\nvoice--\n\nMAUD.  Oh!\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  It is rough and coarse and it cracked on every high note.\n\nMAUD.  Oh!  Oh!\n\n[Recollecting herself and shrugging her shoulders.]  Oh, very well.  Now\nlet's see if you can do any better with the bag.\n\n[FITZSIMMONS takes off coat and gives exhibition.]\n\n[MAUD looks on in an ecstasy of admiration.]\n\nMAUD.  [As he finishes.]  Beautiful!  Beautiful!\n\n[FITZSIMMONS puts on coat and goes over and sits down near table.]\nNothing like the bag to limber one up.  I feel like a fighting cock.\nHarry, let's go out on a toot, you and I.\n\nMAUD.  Wh-a-a-t?\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  A toot.  You know--one of those rip-snorting nights you\nused to make.\n\nMAUD.  [Emphatically, as she picks up newspapers from leather chair, sits\ndown, and places them on her lap.]  I'll do nothing of the sort.\nI've--I've reformed.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  You used to joy-ride like the very devil.\n\nMAUD.  I know it.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  And you always had a pretty girl or two along.\n\nMAUD.  [Boastfully, in mannish, fashion.]  Oh, I still have my fling.  Do\nyou know any--well,--er,--nice girls?\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  Sure.\n\nMAUD.  Put me wise.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  Sure.  You know Jack Sylvester?\n\nMAUD.  [Forgetting herself.]  He's my brother--\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Exploding.]  What!\n\nMAUD.--In-law's first cousin.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  Oh!\n\nMAUD.  So you see I don't know him very well.  I only met him once--at\nthe club.  We had a drink together.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  Then you don't know his sister?\n\nMAUD.  [Starting.]  His sister?  I--I didn't know he had a sister.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Enthusiastically.]  She's a peach.  A queen.  A little bit\nof all right.  A--a loo-loo.\n\nMAUD.  [Flattered.]  She is, is she?\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  She's a scream.  You ought to get acquainted with her.\n\nMAUD.  [Slyly.]  You know her, then?\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  You bet.\n\nMAUD.  [Aside.]  Oh, ho!  [To FITZSIMMONS.]  Know her very well?\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  I've taken her out more times than I can remember.  You'll\nlike her, I'm sure.\n\nMAUD.  Thanks.  Tell me some more about her.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  She dresses a bit loud.  But you won't mind that.  And\nwhatever you do, don't take her to eat.\n\nMAUD.  [Hiding her chagrin.]  Why not?\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  I never saw such an appetite--\n\nMAUD.  Oh!\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  It's fair sickening.  She must have a tapeworm.  And she\nthinks she can sing.\n\nMAUD.  Yes?\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  Rotten.  You can do better yourself, and that's not saying\nmuch.  She's a nice girl, really she is, but she is the black sheep of\nthe family.  Funny, isn't it?\n\nMAUD.  [Weak voice.]  Yes, funny.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  Her brother Jack is all right.  But he can't do anything\nwith her.  She's a--a--\n\nMAUD.  [Grimly.]  Yes.  Go on.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  A holy terror.  She ought to be in a reform school.\n\nMAUD.  [Springing to her feet and slamming newspapers in his face.]  Oh!\nOh!  Oh!  You liar!  She isn't anything of the sort!\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Recovering from the onslaught and making believe he is\nangry, advancing threateningly on her.]  Now I'm going to put a head on\nyou.  You young hoodlum.\n\nMAUD.  [All alarm and contrition, backing away from him.]  Don't!  Please\ndon't!  I'm sorry!  I apologise.  I--I beg your pardon, Bob.  Only I\ndon't like to hear girls talked about that way, even--even if it is true.\nAnd you ought to know.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Subsiding and resuming seat.]  You've changed a lot, I\nmust say.\n\nMAUD.  [Sitting down in leather chair.]  I told you I'd reformed.  Let us\ntalk about something else.  Why is it girls like prize-fighters?  I\nshould think--ahem--I mean it seems to me that girls would think prize-\nfighters horrid.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  They are men.\n\nMAUD.  But there is so much crookedness in the game.  One hears about it\nall the time.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  There are crooked men in every business and profession.  The\nbest fighters are not crooked.\n\nMAUD.  I--er--I thought they all faked fights when there was enough in\nit.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  Not the best ones.\n\nMAUD.  Did you--er--ever fake a fight?\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Looking at her sharply, then speaking solemnly.]  Yes.\nOnce.\n\nMAUD.  [Shocked, speaking sadly.]  And I always heard of you and thought\nof you as the one clean champion who never faked.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Gently and seriously.]  Let me tell you about it.  It was\ndown in Australia.  I had just begun to fight my way up.  It was with old\nBill Hobart out at Rushcutters Bay.  I threw the fight to him.\n\nMAUD.  [Repelled, disgusted.]  Oh!  I could not have believed it of you.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  Let me tell you about it.  Bill was an old fighter.  Not an\nold man, you know, but he'd been in the fighting game a long time.  He\nwas about thirty-eight and a gamer man never entered the ring.  But he\nwas in hard luck.  Younger fighters were coming up, and he was being\ncrowded out.  At that time it wasn't often he got a fight and the purses\nwere small.  Besides it was a drought year in Australia.  You don't know\nwhat that means.  It means that the rangers are starved.  It means that\nthe sheep are starved and die by the millions.  It means that there is no\nmoney and no work, and that the men and women and kiddies starve.\n\nBill Hobart had a missus and three kids and at the time of his fight with\nme they were all starving.  They did not have enough to eat.  Do you\nunderstand?  They did not have enough to eat.  And Bill did not have\nenough to eat.  He trained on an empty stomach, which is no way to train\nyou'll admit.  During that drought year there was little enough money in\nthe ring, but he had failed to get any fights.  He had worked at long-\nshoring, ditch-digging, coal-shovelling--anything, to keep the life in\nthe missus and the kiddies.  The trouble was the jobs didn't hold out.\nAnd there he was, matched to fight with me, behind in his rent, a tough\nold chopping-block, but weak from lack of food.  If he did not win the\nfight, the landlord was going to put them into the street.\n\nMAUD.  But why would you want to fight with him in such weak condition?\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  I did not know.  I did not learn till at the ringside just\nbefore the fight.  It was in the dressing rooms, waiting our turn to go\non.  Bill came out of his room, ready for the ring.  \"Bill,\" I said--in\nfun, you know.  \"Bill, I've got to do you to-night.\"  He said nothing,\nbut he looked at me with the saddest and most pitiful face I have ever\nseen.  He went back into his dressing room and sat down.\n\n\"Poor Bill!\" one of my seconds said.  \"He's been fair starving these last\nweeks.  And I've got it straight, the landlord chucks him out if he loses\nto-night.\"\n\nThen the call came and we went into the ring.  Bill was desperate.  He\nfought like a tiger, a madman.  He was fair crazy.  He was fighting for\nmore than I was fighting for.  I was a rising fighter, and I was fighting\nfor the money and the recognition.  But Bill was fighting for life--for\nthe life of his loved ones.\n\nWell, condition told.  The strength went out of him, and I was fresh as a\ndaisy.  \"What's the matter, Bill?\" I said to him in a clinch.   \"You're\nweak.\"  \"I ain't had a bit to eat this day,\" he answered.  That was all.\n\nBy the seventh round he was about all in, hanging on and panting and\nsobbing for breath in the clinches, and I knew I could put him out any\ntime.  I drew back my right for the short-arm jab that would do the\nbusiness.  He knew it was coming, and he was powerless to prevent it.\n\n\"For the love of God, Bob,\" he said; and--[Pause.]\n\nMAUD.  Yes?  Yes?\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  I held back the blow.  We were in a clinch.\n\n\"For the love of God, Bob,\" he said again, \"the misses and the kiddies!\"\n\nAnd right there I saw and knew it all.  I saw the hungry children asleep,\nand the missus sitting up and waiting for Bill to come home, waiting to\nknow whether they were to have food to eat or be thrown out in the\nstreet.\n\n\"Bill,\" I said, in the next clinch, so low only he could hear.  \"Bill,\nremember the La Blanche swing.  Give it to me, hard.\"\n\nWe broke away, and he was tottering and groggy.  He staggered away and\nstarted to whirl the swing.  I saw it coming.  I made believe I didn't\nand started after him in a rush.  Biff!  It caught me on the jaw, and I\nwent down.  I was young and strong.  I could eat punishment.  I could\nhave got up the first second.  But I lay there and let them count me out.\nAnd making believe I was still dazed, I let them carry me to my corner\nand work to bring me to.  [Pause.]\n\nWell, I faked that fight.\n\nMAUD.  [Springing to him and shaking his hand.]  Thank God!  Oh!  You are\na man!  A--a--a hero!\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Dryly, feeling in his pocket.]  Let's have a smoke.  [He\nfails to find cigarette case.]\n\nMAUD.  I can't tell you how glad I am you told me that.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Gruffly.]  Forget it.  [He looks on table, and fails to\nfind cigarette case.  Looks at her suspiciously, then crosses to desk at\nright and reaches for telephone.]\n\nMAUD.  [Curiously.]  What are you going to do?\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  Call the police.\n\nMAUD.  What for?\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  For you.\n\nMAUD.  For me?\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  You are not Harry Jones.  And not only are you an impostor,\nbut you are a thief.\n\nMAUD.  [Indignantly.]  How dare you?\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  You have stolen my cigarette case.\n\nMAUD.  [Remembering and taken aback, pulls out cigarette case.]  Here it\nis.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  Too late.  It won't save you.  This club must be kept\nrespectable.  Thieves cannot be tolerated.\n\nMAUD.  [Growing alarm.]  But you won't have me arrested?\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  I certainly will.\n\nMAUD.  [Pleadingly.]  Please!  Please!\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Obdurately.]  I see no reason why I should not.\n\nMAUD.  [Hurriedly, in a panic.]  I'll give you a reason--a--a good one.\nI--I--am not Harry Jones.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Grimly.]  A good reason in itself to call in the police.\n\nMAUD.  That isn't the reason.  I'm--a--Oh!  I'm so ashamed.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Sternly.]  I should say you ought to be.  [Reaches for\ntelephone receiver.]\n\nMAUD.  [In rush of desperation.]  Stop!  I'm a--I'm a--a girl.  There!\n[Sinks down in chair, burying her face in her hands.]\n\n[FITZSIMMONS, hanging up receiver, grunts.]\n\n[MAUD removes hands and looks at him indignantly.  As she speaks her\nindignation grows.]\n\nMAUD.  I only wanted your cigarette case to prove to my brother that I\nhad been here.  I--I'm Maud Sylvester, and you never took me out once.\nAnd I'm not a black sheep.  And I don't dress loudly, and I haven't a--a\ntapeworm.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Grinning and pulling out card from vest pocket.]  I knew\nyou were Miss Sylvester all the time.\n\nMAUD.  Oh!  You brute!  I'll never speak to you again.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Gently.]  You'll let me see you safely out of here.\n\nMAUD.  [Relenting.]  Ye-e-s.  [She rises, crosses to table, and is about\nto stoop for motor cloak and bonnet, but he forestall her, holds cloak\nand helps her into it.]  Thank you.  [She takes off wig, fluffs her own\nhair becomingly, and puts on bonnet, looking every inch a pretty young\ngirl, ready for an automobile ride.]\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Who, all the time, watching her transformation, has been\ngrowing bashful, now handing her the cigarette case.]  Here's the\ncigarette case.  You may k-k-keep it.\n\nMAUD.  [Looking at him, hesitates, then takes it.]  I thank you--er--Bob.\nI shall treasure it all my life.  [He is very embarrassed.]  Why, I do\nbelieve you're bashful.  What is the matter?\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  [Stammering.]  Why--I--you--You are a girl--and--a--a--deuced\npretty one.\n\nMAUD.  [Taking his arm, ready to start for door.]  But you knew it all\nalong.\n\nFITZSIMMONS.  But it's somehow different now when you've got your girl's\nclothes on.\n\nMAUD.  But you weren't a bit bashful--or nice, when--you--you--[Blurting\nit out.]  Were so anxious about birth marks.\n\n[They start to make exit.]\n\nCURTAIN","title":"The Human Drift","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":31663}