Gounod's "Chantez toujours," singing it very passably. He hadn't much voice, but he knew how to sing.

"Like that?" inquired Cospatric.

"Remarkably," said I.

"Better than the other?"

"A hundred per cent."

"Then keep the same stop out, Haigh, and go ahead."

And Haigh turned to the piano and rattled off half a dozen other goodish ballads. Then he said he was tired, and straggled out on a sofa and blinked at the ceiling, whilst Cospatric and I wallowed in Cambridge shop again. It's extraordinary how men do like to talk over the follies of those old times. And afterwards Celestin indulged us in dinner, a regular epicurean feast, washed down with decent wine, a thing worth much fine gold after a month and a half in Norway.

"You do know how to take care of yourself on this craft," I observed to Cospatric that evening.

"We don't live like this at sea, you know. It's regular ship's fare with us then. And so, you see, we appreciate little bouts of gourmandisé when we get into port. Personally, I've got that principle somewhat ingrained. In fact, I've rubbed along that way ever since I got adrift from England and respectability. The system has its drawbacks, but from my point of view it makes life worth living. I've had roughish spells between whiles, but I'm so peculiarly constituted that a short bright spot of comfort makes me forget the disagreeables that have gone before, and wipes the slate clean for a fresh start."

During the days that followed, when not shooting or fishing, I was generally on that ugly little cutter. Two things drew me: firstly (I'm sorry to own), the fare, which was so vastly superior to my own; and secondly, yarns. There was another attraction later, but I did not know of it then.

Those yarns of Cospatric's were tales one would not forget. He told of things which are not written down in books. He had travelled because he couldn't help it, and consequently had seen and done things that more well-to-do travellers are debarred from. He had housed amongst the most iniquitous places on God's earth, from Callao to Port Saïd; he had wandered from Yokohama to Mandalay; he had been trimmer on a Shaw-Savile boat; he had served as mate on a Genovese timber barque.

He told of all these matters with an open contempt, in which Haigh (when he did not happen to be dozing) readily joined him. The pair of them had both knocked about the world largely. But it was not because they liked it. It was the Fates that had ordained their first cycle of vagabondage. This new mode of living in a shifting house—to wit, the ugly cutter—was taken up because sea-roaming had been so thoroughly ingrained into their natures that as yet neither of them had found a spot he cared to settle down in permanently.

The rolling stone aphorism had been pretty accurately fulfilled in Cospatric's case. He had gathered during the greater part of his nomadic life little moss which he could convert into a bank-note equivalent. Another man might have utilized some of the material; he lacked the skill to set it in vendible form. With one solitary exception, his gains during those vagrant years may be summed up under two heads. He had gathered a knowledge of certain orders of his species that was both extensive and peculiar; and he had amassed a collection of tattooings that was unique for a European. The former he cared not one jot about, displaying his intimate acquaintance with the shadier side of the world's peoples with apologies; but in the latter he took an almost childish pride. They were not, he pointed out, the rude frescoings of the British mariner, who outlines a diagrammatic female with a sail needle, tints her with gunpowder, and labels her with the name of his current lady-love to prevent mistakes. Such crude efforts have their good points; for instance, they promote constancy. But they are hideously inartistic, and, moreover, to a man of ordinarily fickle nature, are apt to bring in very damning evidence at the most inopportune moments. Whereas (still according to Cospatric) the higher types of these human frescoes spell Art, with a very big A, and form a portable picture gallery which no spasmodic poverty can ever induce one to pawn or otherwise part with.

The adaptability of the medium for artistic design is a matter open to argument. However, Cospatric bore upon his person better specimens than I have ever seen before. He had sat to none but the most noted artists of Burmah and Japan, and the outcome of their brushes—or, rather, needles, as I suppose it should be termed—was in places more than remarkable. Buddhas, nautch-girls, sacred white elephants, serial fairy stories, and the rest were all worth studying; but I think the chefs-d'œuvre of the two artistic centres were a peacock and a multi-coloured dragon. The bird stood before a temple (on the mid forearm), serenely conscious of its own perfection. Every feather on its body was true to life, every spot on its tail a microscopic wonder. The beast (or the creeping thing, if you so prefer to name it) twined round one of his lower limbs, leaving the dent of its claws in the flesh, and resting its squat, outstretched head on the centre of the knee-cap. And so cunningly was the creature perched (as its owner gleefully pointed out) that the least movement of his crural muscles set the jagged backbone a-quivering, and the slobbering lips to mumble and mow. Cospatric said that dragon was a most finished piece of workmanship, and worth all he had cost.

"That's the worst of really good tattooing," he explained, à propos of this beast; "it's so infernally expensive to get the best men. You've no idea how they are run after. But luckily they've a soft place for a real connoisseur, even though he comes from the West. And, besides, I've got such a grand skin...."

Music and dinners absorbed his spare cash when such were available; but out in Burmah and Japan neither were to his taste, and consequently all ready funds were wont to be sunk in corporeal decoration.

Whether the outlay seems judicious I will not say. It was not my hide that these uncanny limners operated upon.

Another of Cospatric's tastes was one I could chime in with more readily. He did not flaunt it, by any means. On the contrary, he kept the thing hidden, and I stumbled across it only by accident. Moreover, it was a stroke of luck for me that I did so, as my want of knowledge had been a bar to any intimacy; whereas, once in his confidence upon this point, we got on together swimmingly, and I had a good time.

It was an unpremeditated return to the yacht late at night with news of bear that helped the discovery. Ulus had brought the tidings just as I was going to bed that his bjorn-ship was expected to call at a neighbouring farm to polish off the remains of a sheep; and as bear was the only sort of local game which Cospatric considered worth powder and ball, I thought I'd knock him up for the chance of a shot. So I went out, and tramped down to the shore opposite to where the ugly cutter was riding. But I did not hail. I stood there and listened—listened with some wonder and some delight—I believe I gaped. The strings of the "upright grand" were in motion, but they were giving vent to neither ballad tune nor comic jig. And chiming in with them were the notes of a violin, played tunefully, accurately, boldly. That last, I knew, must be Cospatric's. I had not seen the instrument here as yet, but I remembered he was supposed to be rather good on it up at Cambridge.

After a bit I pulled myself together and hailed. The music ceased abruptly. Cospatric's head appeared through the hatch, and Cospatric's voice inquired with a good deal of impatience what I wanted.

I told him about the bear, and then added a few words in praise of the music. "Why ever didn't you let me hear your concert before?" I asked. "Did you think it was a case of pearls and pigs?"

"That's exactly the reason! I didn't know you cared for anything more advanced than those ballad affairs. However, if