Free Again

"Don't be bitter," he said. "Happiness was my word. The Good Man
was good to you when he made you. That ought to be a source of
satisfaction. And as for the girl--"

"What girl?"

"If she could only see you now. Why in thunder didn't you take
those clothes on board? I wanted you to. Couldn't a captain wear
a dress suit on special occasions?"

"Mac," I said gravely, "if you will think a moment, you will
remember that the only special occasions on the Ella, after I
took charge, were funerals. Have you sat through seven days of
horrors without realizing that?"

Mac had once gone to Europe on a liner, and, having exhausted his
funds, returned on a cattle-boat.

"All the captains I ever knew," he said largely, "were a fussy lot
--dressed to kill, and navigating the boat from the head of a
dinner-table. But I suppose you know. I was only regretting that
she hadn't seen you the way you're looking now. That's all. I
suppose I may regret, without hurting your feelings!"

He dropped all mention of Elsa after that, for a long time. But
I saw him looking at me, at intervals, during the evening, and
sighing. He was still regretting!

We enjoyed the theater, after all, with the pent-up enthusiasm of
long months of work and strain. We laughed at the puerile fun,
encored the prettiest of the girls, and swaggered in the lobby
between acts, with cigarettes. There we ran across the one man I
knew in Philadelphia, and had supper after the play with three or
four fellows who, on hearing my story, persisted in believing that
I had sailed on the Ella as a lark or to follow a girl. My simple
statement that I had done it out of necessity met with roars of
laughter and finally I let it go at that.