BRINGING MR. TOWNSEND 

 BACK AGAIN. 



" Escape me ? 

 Never, 

 Beloved! " 



— Browning. 



" Tell me, messmate, why in the name of all 

 that's shipshape did you ever come to sea ? " 



" Shiver my soul if I can tell ! " 



" Til tell you, boy, Til tell you. You come to 

 sea just to see the world. Ain't I right, Jack ? 

 All you come for was just to see the world. You 

 wanted to clap your blinkin' top-lights on Nuka- 

 hiva, an' Upolo, an' Hivaoa, an' the Cape, an' 

 Mahee, an' all them high-saoundin' places you 

 hearn tell on when you was knee-high to a marlin' 

 spike." 



The older man spoke with an air of preternatu- 

 ral knowingness. He leaned forward insinuatingly 

 upon the stout iron hoop that ran under his arms. 

 The youth, as he listened to this relentless diag- 

 nosis of his distemper, lolled back upon his own 

 iron hoop and thrust his half-akimbo elbows out 

 across it. The two whalemen were upon lookout 

 duty at the mainmast head of that staunch old 

 hooker, the whaling ship Swift. 



