The pump-man had come to a full stop.  The third officer was standing near.  A regurgitating and ruminating little animal was the third officer, who always after a meal came up on deck to lean over the after-rail, and spend a few enjoyable minutes in picking his teeth, and rechewing the lumps of food as they welled regularly into his throat; but otherwise a polite little man, plainly waiting for a chance to say a word to Kieran, but too well-bred to break in on any intimate conversation.  However, Kieran remained silent so very long that the third officer turned and ventured:  “’Adn’t you better go below and have your bit o’ dinner afore it’s gone, mate?” And Kieran came out of his dream and said perhaps he’d better and stood up to go below; but on the top step of the ladder he paused and over his shoulder threw back to the passenger:  “It was a long time, though, before Cogan saw Peru.”

II

When Kieran came on deck again the third officer had gone forward, but the passenger was still on one of the towing bitts and still smoking.  Kieran, strolling to the taffrail, resumed his study of the tossing ship’s wake and the cavorting barge in tow.  When he seemed to have settled the matter to his satisfaction, he seated himself on the other towing bitt.

“You can get an idea into your head and sometimes it’ll swing you around like that barge on the end of that hawser, won’t it?  Or perhaps your mind don’t run that way?”

“I don’t see,” retorted the passenger, “that that barge has to stick there forever.  What’s to prevent her from making a leap and fetching up suddenly, and if she did she’d part that hawser like a piece of twine.”

“Yes, but she won’t make the leap—­not till something outside of herself drives her to it.  If a sea should rise, or a gale of wind, she might.  But it would take something like that.  In the meantime she points this way and that, slewing now to this side—­see—­and now to the other—­but never getting away from this ship which has her in tow.  Our course must be her course.”

“Yes, I suppose that is so.”

“Well, then, Cogan that I’ve been telling you about was nearly always in tow of a force that seemed to be outside of himself.  A storm, a high sea, or a gale of wind in his case would be an upheaval of his soul like.  But in those days he hadn’t come to that.  Maybe he was still only half awake.  Martin Jackson, sitting out on the sidewalk of his Fourth of July saloon, came nearer to making him think than all of the school teachers he’d ever seen.  Maybe, too, life was too smooth in those days.  However, he was always in tow of some fancy or other.  And one day, being free of the navy, he went to Peru.”

’"Twas love at first sight then with that young Peruvian girl on the beach?”