Fragmentary gossip of former days had said that Holly Barclay's bane was women; other whispers had it that it was the gaming table; still others that it was the larger gaming table of the Street. Whatever it was, it had apparently left him a rather ghastly wreck of a man; a prey, not to remorse, perhaps, but certainly to fear. And with the fear in the deep-set eyes there was a hint of childish petulance; the irritable humor of a man who has fought a losing battle with life and expects to be waited upon and coddled as a reward for his defeat and humiliation.
It was a relief to turn from this haggard wreck, and from the sham-hearty major, to the mild-eyed professor. Sanford I had known in the university, and a less self-conscious or more lovable man never lived. Deeply immersed in the natural sciences, which were his hobby, and absent-minded at times to a degree that put to shame the best efforts of the college-professor-joke makers, he was nevertheless the most human of men; a faculty member whose door was always hospitably open to the homesick Freshman, and whose influence for good in the lush field of the college campus was second only to that of his plain-featured, motherly wife.
"Ah, yes," he was saying, in answer to the major's eulogy of chartreuse as a cordial, "it is said to be a distillation from the leaves of Urtica pilulifera, the much-abused nettle, I believe. Those old Alpine monks had a wonderful knowledge of the scanty flora of the high altitudes where they built their monasteries. Which reminds me: I hope Bonteck will give us an opportunity to study some of the remarkable plant forms peculiar to the tropics before we return. It would be most enlightening to a stay-at-home like myself."
The major's facial expression was that of a person who has been basely betrayed into casting pearls before swine. That any one could be so benighted as to associate a divine cordial only with the crude materials out of which it might be made was quite beyond his powers of comprehension.
"Hum," he muttered, "I've always understood that the process of chartreuse-making was a secret that was most jealously guarded." And with that he let the pearl casting stop abruptly.
Here was a striking example, one would say, of the ill-assortment of our mixed ship's company manifesting itself at the introductory breakfast at sea. Throughout the meal Barclay said nothing to any of us. His few remarks were addressed to the serving steward, and they were all in the nature of complaints. His coffee was too weak, the bacon was too crisp, the cold meats were underdone. What with the gourmet appetite of the major, and Barclay's apparent lack of any appetite at all, the broken meal was anything but a feast of reason and a flow of soul, and I was glad to break away to the freedom of the decks.
Finding the after-deck untenanted, I strolled forward. The Andromeda was loafing along over a sea as calm as a mill-pond, and her course, as nearly as I could guess it from the position of the sun, was a little to the east of south. Van Dyck and Billy Grisdale were on the bridge, and one of the foreign-looking sailormen had the wheel. On the main-deck forward three members of the crew were swabbing down, and two others were polishing brass. As I paused at the rail in the shadow of the bridge overhang, Goff, the sailing-master, came stumping along. Though no one had as yet told me that he was a Gloucesterman, I took a shot at it.
"This is not much like cracking on with a schooner for the Banks, is it, Captain?" was the form the shot took; and the grizzled veteran of the sea stopped and looked me over with an eye militantly appraisive.
"What you know about the Banks?" he inquired hostilely.
"Little enough," I admitted. "One trip, made when I was a boy, in the schooner Maria Ann, of Gloucester, Captain Standifer."