Sandy had made it a rule in life to be on hand when anything was happening. He had viewed cricket-matches from tree-tops, had answered the call of fire at midnight,
and tramped ten miles to see the finish of a great regatta. But something was about to take place which seemed entirely beyond his attainment. Two hours passed before he solved the problem.
"Takin' the rest-cure, kid?" asked a passing sailor as he shied a stick at Sandy's shins.
Sandy stretched himself and smiled up at the sailor. It was a smile that waited for an answer and usually got it—a smile so brimming over with good-fellowship and confidence that it made a lover of a friend and a friend of an enemy.
"It's a trip that I'm thinkin' of takin'," he cried blithely as he jumped to his feet. "Here's the shillin' I owe you, partner, and may the best luck ye've had be the worst luck that's comin'."
He tossed a coin to the sailor, and thrusting his hands in his pockets, executed a brief but brilliant pas seul, and then went whistling away down the wharf. He swung along right cheerily, his rags fluttering, his
chin in the air, for the wind had settled in one direction, and the weather-vane and Sandy had both made up their minds.
The sailor looked after him fondly. "He's a bloomin' good little chap," he said to a man near by. "Carries a civil tongue in his head for everybody."
The man grunted. "He's too off and on," he said. "He'll never come to naught."
Two days later, the America, cutting her way across the Atlantic, carried one more passenger than she registered. In the big life-boat swung above the hurricane-deck lay Sandy Kilday, snugly concealed by the heavy canvas covering.