“The band was playing again—­something fine.

“And then the monastery bell tolled.  And presently he heard a chanting—­a slow sad chanting!  And then the chanting also died away.

“He had been lying on the wall with his hat in his hand and staring up at the sky.  Now he sat up, put on his hat, took another look to the lights in the harbor, and hummed softly the Philippine service song—­

  “It’s home, boy, home, it’s home you ought to be.”

“And you’ve no kick coming.  Dreams dreams, always dreams, but you’ve had your hour, too.’  He took another look at the lights of the fleet—­another to the lights of the city below him—­’Good night, Lima,’ he whispered, and dropped off the wall.”

The pump-man had begun his story this evening while sitting with back to the rail and feet stretched out on the deck before him.  He finished while lying on his back, hands clasped under the back of his head, and wide eyes on the sky.

The passenger leaned on the rail, studied the stem of the ship, and listened to the surge of back wash against the ship’s bow as she drove on.  Abeam, the young moon drooped.

Kieran said nothing more.  The passenger nothing for a long time.  Then it was: 

“And they were married?”

“I don’t know—­Cogan didn’t wait to see—­but of course.”

“Of course,” echoed the passenger, and in silence resumed his study of the ship’s bow cutting through the little seas.

The passenger turned inboard.  “But Cogan—­where is he?”

“There was no Cogan.”

“No Cogan.”

“No, no Cogan.”

“And no bull-fight, and no Valera, and no Torellas, nor Juan, and it never happened?”

“Why, of course it happened, and just as I’ve told it.  But not to anybody named Cogan.  There was no Cogan, or rather”—­Kieran rolled over on his side and rested his head on his elbow—­“I’m Cogan.”

“Oh-h-h.  Oh-h-h.  And you’re Campbell, the old champion athlete?”

“Yes, I’m Campbell.  And I’m Cogan.  And I’m Kieran, pump-man on this wall-sided oil-tanker at fifty-five per month.”

“But why?”

“Why, why?” He sat up.  The passenger could see the thick, dark eyebrows draw together.  “Why?  Why anything?  What would you do?”

“Forget it.”

“Forget it.  But can you?—­everything?  No—­you betcher you can’t.  And it’s every man to his own cure.  Some I know get drunk and fight.  And some I know who get drunk and cry.  Some worry their friends to death, and some others beat their wives.  Every man to his way.  I have no wife”—­he laughed softly—­“and I want to keep my friends.  So I run my heart out in races and beat up bully bosons, and fight bulls—­when I can.”

“But when you can’t?”

“When I can’t?  Why, when I can’t, I lay out on the fo’c’s’le head and bay up at a two-horned moon.”

The passenger turned and looked down.  “Thank your God, Kieran,” he said, “you can laugh when you say that.”