A broad deck, still wet from its morning scrubbing and lined with steamer chairs, lay in front of him.  A limitless, oily sea stretched out before his bewildered eyes; he touched the rail with his hands to verify his vision.  The strangeness of it was uncanny.  He felt as if he were walking in his sleep.  He realized that a great fragment had suddenly dropped out of his life’s pattern, and it was intensely disquieting to think of all it might have carried with it.

He began to pace the deck mechanically, falling in with the other early risers who were out for a breath of morning air, striving to adjust himself to this new state of affairs.  But even though the solid reality of his surroundings soon brought him back more nearly to a normal state of mind, he felt an ever-present expectancy of some new shock, some new and abrupt transition that might yet bring him back to his starting-point.  But this obsession gradually left him, as the brisk sea breeze brought him to a proper perspective and braced him to face the full consequences of his long, restless night’s orgy.

No man is so systematic, none is so well ordered in his affairs, that he can cut out a slice of his life at a moment’s notice without suffering many kinds of loss and inconvenience.  Although Anthony was a youth of few responsibilities, he awoke suddenly to the fact that there were a thousand things that needed doing, a thousand people who needed to know his whereabouts, a thousand things that were bound to go wrong.  For instance, there was his brand-new French car, standing with motor blanketed beside the Forty-fifth Street curb.

What had happened to it, and to the urchin he had left in charge of it?  He owed a thousand dollars on its purchase, which he had promised to pay yesterday.  Then, too, he had neglected his house account at the University Club, and it was long overdue.  That remittance from his father had come just in the nick of time.  Suddenly he recalled placing the check in his bill-case, and he searched himself diligently, but found nothing.  That reminded him that he had won a bet or two on the football game and the money needed collecting.  There was the shooting trip to Cape Cod as well.  He was due there to-day for a week-end among the geese and brant.  What would Benny Glover think when he failed to show up or even telegraph?  Benny’s sister was coming down from Boston with some friends and—­oh, it was simply imperative that he get some word ashore.

He let his eyes rove over the ship in desperation, then a happy thought came to him.

“The wireless!” he said aloud.  “Bonehead!  Why didn’t you think of that long ago?” A glance at the rigging showed him that the Santa Cruz was equipped with a plant, and a moment later he was hammering at the operator’s door.

“I want to send a message right away!” he cried, excitedly; but the “wireless” shook his head with a smile.

“I’m sorry, but—­”