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I believe he had seen us out of thecohy of a fourteen-ton yawl belonging to Marlow my host and skipper We

helped the boy we had with us to haul the boat up on the landing-stage

before ent up to the riverside inn, where we found our new

acquaintance eating his dinner in dignified loneliness at the head of a

long table, white and inhospitable like a snow bank

The red tint of his clear-cut face with trirey hair was the only wariness of

that room cooled by the cheerless tablecloth We knew hiht as the owner of a little five-ton cutter, which he sailed alone

apparently, a fellow yachts band of fanatics who

cruise at the mouth of the Thames But the first time he addressed the

waiter sharply as 'steward' we knew him at once for a sailor as well as a

yachtsman

Presently he had occasion to reprove that same waiter for the slovenly

manner in which the dinner was served He did it with considerable

energy and then turned to us

"If we at sea," he declared, "went about our work as people ashore high

and low go about theirs we should neverNo one would

eated and sailed in the happy-go-

lucky manner people conduct their business on shore would ever arrive

into port"

Since he had retired from the sea he had been astonished to discover that