"It's awkward," said Farrell, "that we can't even offer you a bed. We're all packed up, ready to sail by the steamer to-morrow. Mrs. Farrell and I in fact are shifting quarters.… Staying?"
"No," said Foe imperturbably. "I shall be sailing to-morrow, too. … I just heard of this place, and thought I'd like to have a look at it before going on.… Shouldn't think of troubling you."
"Curious, how small the world is," went on Farrell in a level voice. "You won't mind my talking a bit in the old manner?… It sort of puts us back at the old ease, eh?… Well then, we can't offer to put you up. But if you don't mind a packing-case for a chair and another for a table—eh, Santa?"
"We shall be charmed," said Santa.
"You understand that it will be a picnic," added Farrell.
"My good sir!" protested Foe.
"Yes?… It will be better than Engelbaum's, any way. I don't mind promising," said Farrell. "We will talk over old times, and Santa shall play her guitar to us."
That is how the two men met.
The P.M. Diaz plied no farther than Callao. From Callao the Farrells, with their furniture, and Foe in company, worked down by coasters to Valparaiso.
Does any one of you remember the mystery of the Eurotas? which regularly for about four months occupied from an inch-and-a-half to four inches space in the newspapers. In 1909… pretty late in the year. She happened to be the first ship of a new line started between Valparaiso and Sydney, and her owners had so well boomed the adventure in the Press that, when she began to be reported as overdue, the public woke up and she became as interesting as a lost dog. She was of 12,000 tons, new, Clyde-built, well-found, and carried a mixed cargo, with about twenty passengers. Two vessels reported having passed her, about three hundred miles out. After that she had become as a ship that had never been.