Ocean Tramps

by H. De Vere Stacpoole

OCEAN TRAMPS

The beauty of a flower.
The beauty of a tune.
The beauty of the hour
When dusk embraces June:
Of all the beauties earthly
The soul of man may clip,
On earth there is no beauty
Like the beauty of a ship.

OCEAN TRAMPS

By H. de VERE STACPOOLE

Author of “The Blue Lagoon,” “The Pearl

Fishers,” “The Children of the Sea,” Etc., Etc.

LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO.

PATERNOSTER ROW · · 1924

FOREWORD

I met Billy Harman on Circular Wharf, Sydney, so many years ago that I think he must be dead. He is the chief person in the first six stories of this book, which have appeared illustrated in an English, an American and a Canadian magazine, in all of which the illustrator depicted Billy as a young, rather good-looking man. That he was not. Billy, when I met him, was well over forty, big and scrubby-bearded, a shell-back with a touch of the Longshoreman, blue far-seeing eyes, the eyes of a child—and an innocence none the less delightful because streaked with guile.