The sailor looked after him fondly.  “He’s a bloomin’ good little chap,” he said to a man near by.  “Carries a civil tongue in his head for everybody.”

The man grunted.  “He’s too off and on,” he said.  “He’ll never come to naught.”

Two days later, the America, cutting her way across the Atlantic, carried one more passenger than she registered.  In the big life-boat swung above the hurricane-deck lay Sandy Kilday, snugly concealed by the heavy canvas covering.

He had managed to come aboard under cover of the friendly fog, and had boldly appropriated a life-boat and was doing light housekeeping.  The apartment, to be sure, was rather small and dark, for the only light came through a tiny aperture where the canvas was tucked back.  At this end Sandy attended to his domestic duties.

Here were stored the fresh water and hardtack which the law requires every life-boat to carry in case of an emergency.  Added to these was Sandy’s private larder, consisting of several loaves of bread, a bag of apples, and some canned meat.  The other end of the boat was utilized as a bedroom, a couple of life-preservers serving as the bed, and his own bundle of personal belongings doing duty as a pillow.

There were some drawbacks, naturally, especially to an energetic, restless youngster who had never been in one place so long before in his life.  It was exceedingly inconvenient to have to lie down or crawl; but Sandy had been used to inconveniences all his life, and this was simply a difference in kind, not in degree.  Besides, he could steal out at night and, by being very careful and still, manage to avoid the night watch.

The first night out a man and a girl had come up from the cabin deck and sat directly under his hiding-place.  At first he was too much afraid of discovery to listen to what they were saying, but later his interest outweighed his fear.  For they were evidently lovers, and Sandy was at that inflammable age when to hear mention of love is dangerous and to see a manifestation of it absolute contagion.  When the great question came, his heart waited for the answer.  Perhaps it was the added weight of his unspoken influence that turned the scale.  She said yes.  During the silence that followed, Sandy, unable to restrain his joy, threw his arms about a life-preserver and embraced it fervently.

When they were gone he crawled out to stretch his weary body.  On the deck he found a book which they had left; it was a green book, and on the cover was a golden castle on a golden hill.  All the rest of his life he loved a green book best, for it was through this one that he found his way back again to that enchanted land that lay behind the peat-flames in the shadowy memory.  Early in the morning he read it, with his head on the box of hardtack and his feet on the water-can.  Twice he reluctantly tore himself from its pages and put it back where he had found it.  No one came to claim it, and it lay there, with the golden castle shining in the sun.  Sandy decided to take one more peep.