“You see, Mr. Blair, there may be something in Mr. Ferrier’s idea after all.  I believe that sweet, simple stories, or poetry, or pictures, would please the men.  See how pleased that Great Grimsby man was with the girl’s picture-book that you gave him.  I’m almost converted.  Besides, now I remember it, I heard a gentleman who had been public orator at Cambridge make a crowd of East-End people cry by reading ’Enoch Arden’—­of all the incredible things in the world.”

“Thank you, madam; and when I have got that hospital for you, I shall insist on having one room for pleasure, and pleasure alone; and I’ll take good care my patients are not disturbed in any way.  Fullerton is already on our side, so you and I will take Blair in hand, and curb that unruly scepticism of his.  He is a most unblushing, scoffing sceptic, is he not, madam?”

Blair shook his jolly sides and rose, muttering something about a fahscinating young puppy;—­whereby it may be perceived that he was thinking of mocking Tom.  The night was splendid, and when a sharp air of wind set all the smacks gliding, our voyagers had once more an experience that is one of the most memorable for those to whom it comes seldom.  The seaman tramps smartly; cocks an eye at the topsail, swings round, and rolls back till he is abreast of the wheel; then da capo, and so on all night.  But the reflective landsman gathers many sheaves for the harvest of the soul.  Happy is he if he learns to know what the dense seaman’s life is like.

There are nights when the joy of living will not let one sleep.  Do I not know them?

Ferrier held a little chat with the girls before the scattered party finally broke up, and Marion Dearsley pleased him mightily by saying, “You were quite right about the pleasure-room.  Only wait till we’ve begun our work, and we shall make that dreadful Mr. Blair ashamed of himself.”

“What’s this?  Scandal and tittle-tattle begun on board?  I shall exert my authority as admiral.”

“I knew you were behind me, and that is why I reproved you, sir.  We think the same about the matter, and so does Lena.”

Then Ferrier and Blair and Tom talked until the air of the small hours drove them below, and they saw the yacht skimming among the quiet fleet.  There was enough wind to move the trawls, but the lonely procession did not travel as on that tremendous night when Lewis first learnt what a regular hustler was like.

All the days that followed went by pleasantly enough, though Ferrier could not help chafing.  He was constantly busy with lancet, bandages, splints; he kept a diary of his cases, and after he had cruised among the fleet for three weeks he came to the conclusion that, if the average of injuries and ailments were the same all the year round, every man in the fleet must be under treatment at least three times a year.  It sounds queer, but I can back it with facts—­definite cases.