The other day she and I were going to the Tate Gallery together, and after leaving the bus we came out on the Embankment by means of a curious little street, and suddenly, Carin, we were face to face with some sort of a ship wrecking place. It looked as if it had been there for hundreds of years. The great enclosure was heaped up with parts of ships, with the giant beams and the masts, and hulls, and, more interesting than all the rest, with countless figureheads. Of course I knew that nearly every ship carries its figure at its bow. It was for such a purpose that the beautiful _Victory of Samothrace_ was built, wasn’t it? But not until I had seen these great wooden creatures, made to represent Neptune and Boreas and Victory and Venus and mermaids and angels, and heaven knows what, did I have any idea what care the ship builders put on these figures. Miss Sheepshanks, my chaperon, of course didn’t want me to stop to look at them. She was telling about the pictures waiting for us at the gallery, and reminding me of the closing hour, et cetera, et cetera, but for once I was determined to have my way. So I pleaded with her until she allowed me to go in. There was a white-headed old man in charge, whose face simply shone when I told him I would like to walk around and look at his figureheads. So we went side by side, Miss Sheepshanks following, looking as grieved as she could, and that darling old man told me stories about the ships these figures had come from. I swear to you they literally smelled of the seven seas! Ah, such strange, weird creatures as some of them were, and their battered forms told their own story of the storms they had weathered and the sights they had seen. “What a heap of stories you must know,” I said to him. “Stories?” he repeated looking at me with his old, bright eyes. “Every ship could tell as many stories as would make an Arabian Nights. If I started in, miss, telling the stories I know, I should never be done till the day of my death.” “I do wish I lived near here,” I couldn’t help saying; “then I could come over and listen when you were not busy. That is, if you would be willing to tell some of your stories to me.” “It would put life into my old age,” he said earnestly. “Now, miss, I’m something of a reader in my way. There is a library near that I get my books from, for thripence a day. Not bad, is it? Even a poor man can afford that, miss. But when I read the tales, I think to myself: ‘Why don’t some of you writing fellows come around here and ask the old man a few questions? He could tell you tales of the salt seas that would make men’s hair bristle.’”