He either drops his money all over the place, or else distributes
the lot around; gives it to any one who will take it. Then it

occurs to him that the night is young yet, and that he may require
a good many more drinks for himself and his friends before morning.

So he starts off cheerfully for his ship. His legs never get
affected nor his head either in the usual way. He gets aboard and

simply grabs the first thing that seems to him suitable - the cabin
lamp, a coil of rope, a bag of biscuits, a drum of oil - and

converts it into money without thinking twice about it. This is
the process and no other. You have only to look out that he

doesn't get a start. That's all."
"Confound his psychology," muttered Jasper. "But a man with a

voice like his is fit to talk to the angels. Is he incurable do
you think?"

I said that I thought so. Nobody had prosecuted him yet, but no
one would employ him any longer. His end would be, I feared, to

starve in some hole or other.
"Ah, well," reflected Jasper. "The Bonito isn't trading to any

ports of civilisation. That'll make it easier for him to keep
straight."

That was true. The brig's business was on uncivilised coasts, with
obscure rajahs dwelling in nearly unknown bays; with native

settlements up mysterious rivers opening their sombre, forest-lined
estuaries among a welter of pale green reefs and dazzling sand-

banks, in lonely straits of calm blue water all aglitter with
sunshine. Alone, far from the beaten tracks, she glided, all

white, round dark, frowning headlands, stole out, silent like a
ghost, from behind points of land stretching out all black in the

moonlight; or lay hove-to, like a sleeping sea-bird, under the
shadow of some nameless mountain waiting for a signal. She would

be glimpsed suddenly on misty, squally days dashing disdainfully
aside the short aggressive waves of the Java Sea; or be seen far,

far away, a tiny dazzling white speck flying across the brooding
purple masses of thunderclouds piled up on the horizon. Sometimes,

on the rare mail tracks, where civilisation brushes against wild
mystery, when the naive passengers crowding along the rail

exclaimed, pointing at her with interest: "Oh, here's a yacht!"
the Dutch captain, with a hostile glance, would grunt

contemptuously: "Yacht! No! That's only English Jasper. A
pedlar - "

"A good seaman you say," ejaculated Jasper, still in the matter of
the hopeless Schultz with the wonderfullytouching voice.

"First rate. Ask any one. Quite worth having - only impossible,"
I declared.

"He shall have his chance to reform in the brig," said Jasper, with
a laugh. "There will be no temptations either to drink or steal

where I am going to this time."
I didn't press him for anything more definite on that point. In

fact, intimate as we were, I had a pretty clear notion of the
general run of his business.

But as we are going ashore in his gig he asked suddenly: "By the
way, do you know where Heemskirk is?"

I eyed him covertly, and was reassured. He had asked the question,
not as a lover, but as a trader. I told him that I had heard in

Palembang that the Neptun was on duty down about Flores and
Sumbawa. Quite out of his way. He expressed his satisfaction.

"You know," he went on, "that fellow, when he gets on the Borneo
coast, amuses himself by knocking down my beacons. I have had to

put up a few to help me in and out of the rivers. Early this year
a Celebes trader becalmed in a prau was watching him at it. He

steamed the gunboat full tilt at two of them, one after another,
smashing them to pieces, and then lowered a boat on purpose to pull

out a third, which I had a lot of trouble six months ago to stick
up in the middle of a mudflat for a tide mark. Did you ever hear

of anything more provoking - eh?"
"I wouldn't quarrel with the beggar," I observed casually, yet

disliking that piece of news strongly. "It isn't worth while."
"I quarrel?" cried Jasper. "I don't want to quarrel. I don't want

to hurt a single hair of his ugly head. My dear fellow, when I
think of Freya's twenty-first birthday, all the world's my friend,

Heemskirk included. It's a nasty, spiteful amusement, all the
same."

We parted rather hurriedly" target="_blank" title="ad.仓促地，忙乱地">hurriedly on the quay, each of us having his own
pressing business to attend to. I would have been very much cut up

had I known that this hurried grasp of the hand with "So long, old
boy. Good luck to you!" was the last of our partings.

On his return to the Straits I was away, and he was gone again
before I got back. He was trying to achieve three trips before

Freya's twenty-first birthday. At Nelson's Cove I missed him again
by only a couple of days. Freya and I talked of "that lunatic" and

"perfect idiot" with great delight and infiniteappreciation. She
was very radiant, with a more pronouncedgaiety, notwithstanding

that she had just parted from Jasper. But this was to be their
last separation.

"Do get aboard as soon as you can, Miss Freya," I entreated.
She looked me straight in the face, her colour a little heightened

and with a sort of solemnardour - if there was a little catch in
her voice.

"The very next day."
Ah, yes! The very next day after her twenty-first birthday. I was

pleased at this hint of deep feeling. It was as if she had grown
impatient at last of the self-imposed delay. I supposed that

Jasper's recent visit had told heavily.
"That's right," I said approvingly. "I shall be much easier in my

mind when I know you have taken charge of that lunatic. Don't you
lose a minute. He, of course, will be on time - unless heavens

fall."
"Yes. Unless - " she repeated in a thoughtfulwhisper, raising her

eyes to the evening sky without a speck of cloud anywhere. Silent
for a time, we let our eyes wander over the waters below, looking

mysteriously still in the twilight, as if trustfully composed for a
long, long dream in the warm, tropical night. And the peace all

round us seemed without limits and without end.
And then we began again to talk Jasper over in our usual strain.

We agreed that he was too reckless in many ways. Luckily, the brig
was equal to the situation. Nothing apparently was too much for

her. A perfect darling of a ship, said Miss Freya. She and her
father had spent an afternoon on board. Jasper had given them some

tea. Papa was grumpy. . . . I had a vision of old Nelson under the
brig's snowy awnings, nursing his unassuming vexation, and fanning

himself with his hat. A comedy father. . . . As a new instance of
Jasper's lunacy, I was told that he was distressed at his inability

to have solid silver handles fitted to all the cabin doors. "As if
I would have let him!" commented Miss Freya, with amused

indignation. Incidentally, I learned also that Schultz, the
nautical kleptomaniac with the pathetic voice, was still hanging on

to his job, with Miss Freya's approval. Jasper had confided to the
lady of his heart his purpose of straightening out the fellow's

psychology. Yes, indeed. All the world was his friend because it
breathed the same air with Freya.

Somehow or other, I brought Heemskirk's name into conversation,
and, to my great surprise, startled Miss Freya. Her eyes expressed

something like distress, while she bit her lip as if to contain an
explosion of laughter. Oh! Yes. Heemskirk was at the bungalow at

the same time with Jasper, but he arrived the day after. He left
the same day as the brig, but a few hours later.

"What a nuisance he must have been to you two," I said feelingly.
Her eyes flashed at me a sort of frightened merriment, and suddenly

she exploded into a clear burst of laughter. "Ha, ha, ha!"
I echoed it heartily, but not with the game charming tone: "Ha,

ha, ha! . . . Isn't he grotesque? Ha, ha, ha!" And the
ludicrousness of old Nelson's inanely fierce round eyes in

association with his conciliatory manner to the lieutenant
presenting itself to my mind brought on another fit.