Dan Merrithew

Author of From the Depths of Things, Two Tramps, The Bounder, The Sacrifice, etc.
Thanks are due Mr. Arthur W. Little, president of the Pearson Publishing Company, for permission to use in this novel several incidents in the life of Dan Merrithew which originally appeared in Pearson's Magazine.

The big coastwise tug Hydrographer slid stern-ward into a slip cluttered with driftwood and bituminous dust, stopping within heaving distance of three coal-laden barges which in their day had reared royal s'ls to the wayward winds of the seven seas.
Near-by lay Horace Howland's ocean-going steam yacht, Veiled Ladye , which had put into Norfolk from Caribbean ports, to replenish her bunkers. There were a number of guests aboard, and most of them arose from their wicker chairs on the after-deck and went to the rail, as the great tug pounded alongside.
Grateful for any kind of a break in the monotony of the long morning, they observed with interest the movements of a tall young man, in a blue shirt open at the throat and green corduroy trousers, who caught the heaving line hurtling from the bow of the nearest barge, and hauled the attached towing-cable dripping and wriggling from the heavy waters.
He did it gracefully. There was a fine play of broad shoulders, a resilient disposition of the long, straight limbs, an impression of tiger-like strength and suppleness, not lost upon his observers, upon Virginia Howland least of all. She was not a girl to suppress a thought or emotion uppermost in her mind; and now she turned to her father with an exclamation of pleasure.
Father, she cried, look! Isn't he simply stunning! The Greek ideal—and on a tugboat! Her dark eyes lightened with mischief. Do you suppose he'd mind if I spoke to him?
He'd probably swear at you, said young Ralph Oddington, with a grin. Then, seized by a sudden impulse for which he afterwards kicked himself, being a decent sort of chap, he drew his cigarette case from his pocket and, as the tug came to a standstill, tossed a cigarette across the intervening space. It struck the man in the back, and as he turned, Oddington called,