The call came when he was sound asleep, and a message was joined to it to the effect that he was begged to lose no time. Accordingly he was quickly downstairs, and found a policeman waiting at the door of the hotel. In the damp chill of the early morning--very damp and very chill it was--it was almost a matter of course that things should look yet more hopeless than they had looked the night before. Night appeals to the imagination and works her wonders easily, while morning is coldly prosaic and depressing. A little rain had fallen, lights were still flashing about, shining on wet stones, on which bales and barrels lay heaped; and of the great forest of masts in the river, only those near at hand were beginning to loom out of the mist. Jack's conductor walking briskly along, and quite unaffected by atmospheric influences, told him that they had found that one vessel was to sail that day, and that the gentleman was not on board. "And that's all?" said Jack, disappointed. "That's all, sir, at present. She has been closely watched, and if he joins her it will be soon, and you can't miss him." "Keep out of sight," said Ibbetson, "and if he does turn up, settle with the captain and come to the hotel." They had reached the wharf where the vessel lay, and Ibbetson sat down on a barrel. His watch did not last long. A young light figure came running, carrying a bundle, and leaping over a coil of rope which lay in the way, and Jack, more from precaution than any actual conviction that this was Clive, stopped him. It was the young fellow's start which first assured him, but recognition did not at once dawn in Clive's eyes. When it did, he turned pale. "You here!" he stammered. "And just in time," was Jack's cheerful answer. "I never did anything half so neatly in my life before. My dear fellow, don't be looking round to see how you can give me the slip. The most inveterate of bores never stuck to you as closely as I shall stick." "Mr Ibbetson," said Clive imploringly, "let me go. It's my best chance, it is indeed--don't be so hard on me as to take it away. Somehow or other everything has got into a mess here, and over there," and as he spoke he pointed towards that shadowy world out of which the masts were beginning to stretch themselves, "I may do better." "You will do better here," said Jack. "No, you don't know." "Yes. I do know--quite enough. Come along," he added, drawing him away, and anxious that the policeman should not become visible. "If there is a mess, the more reason you should be here to set things right;" and seeing Clive was still reluctant, he added more gravely, "Look here, Masters. If, when we've gone into the matter and tried to put it straight, it seems as if America would be your best chance after all, I give you my word I'll help you to go there in a straightforward fashion, better than this. Now we'll get back your clothes. Are they sold?" "Most of them."